So very little time has passed and my newborn baby girl is really just morphing rapidly into a little person. MJ's communication efficiency is breathtaking. She doesn't have all the words, but we use sign language and she has distinct sounds. I know what she means. She can clearly indicate yes and no, and when offered choices make preferential selections. She shows she understands things that I don't always think she's going to.
For example, we're currently working on getting her to wear her helmet when in the bicycle bucket. This is mostly in preparation for moving to a front sitting bench position, as I don't want her sitting on the bench without a helmet. Of course, like most children, she has hated things on her head from the beginning. I had all these lovely little newborn caps that she flat out refused to wear. The other day after nursery pick-up I was loading her into the bike and she of course did not want to wear her helmet. I said something along the lines of, "Please, MJ, mommy would really like you to wear your helmet, please." and I made the sign for 'please' to go with it. And she sort of looked at me, stopped yelling, and let me put the helmet on her head. It was amazing!!
Of course, I also think she understands when I say, it's time to do bedtime soon and we need to upstairs and she hustles away from me. Or just frowns and shakes her head. So this isn't all smiles and rose petals! Toddler attitude is real!
When I think about how short a time span it's been, and I look at pictures of my little baby from a year ago, it's really mind blowing to think about how far we've come. And I know how much more she's going to continue to gain in the upcoming months. It's so hard to capture these little moments of wonder. They all fly by so quickly.
