Okay so maybe chatty Jenny is a bit of an exaggeration but she has learned 3 words in sign language - "milk", "more", and "food".
When she signs milk, she usually means she's thirsty. But she also often says it when she means "I want some of that too" signing toward what she wants. Then she'll sign "more" and "food" correctly but only when asked to whereas with "milk" she'll sign that on her own.
Tessa is a great kid! She is so much fun. She is super playful and active. She loves rough housing, tickling, chasing, playing with her friends/cousins, playing at the playground, going swimming, playing at the splash pad. Here she is having a ball chasing a cousin.
Tessa loves playing at the children's museum at Thanksgiving Point. Here the girls are after climbing all the way up to the plane at the top of the play structure.
She also has a really active imagination. She loves playing pretend. She loves putting on her fairy wings and tutu and pretending she is a princess or fairy or fairy princess. She wears them all the time. Here she is wearing a tutu out on a walk even.
She loves acting out some of her favorite movies/activities. We'll play Tinkerbell from Secret of the Wings all the time or pretend we're going to the Princess Party. She also loves reading which we do all the time. She has some of her favorite books which we read again and again. It's fun though because then we'll talk about them later and I really like that we're starting to have conversations about books.
She really likes artwork as well. We color a lot as well as stamp, paint, color with chalk, and decorate. Here she is decorating her birthday cake.
Here Tessa is with a crown she decorated. She got a gift for her birthday of crowns and wands with decorating paint and stickers and they stayed out on the table for nearly a week since Tessa just wanted to keep decorating them all the time.
This has been the first year Tessa has been able to actually blow out her candles so that was fun.
Tessa and Jenny have gotten to be so sweet together and so much fun for each other lately. They'll chase each other around and tickle and hug each other. Lately even, sometimes when I'm holding Jenny, Tessa will ask me to set Jenny down but not so I can hold Tessa instead of Jenny but so Tessa and Jenny can play together.
Tessa has been liking taking pictures lately. Here is some of her work. Not bad for a 3 year old!
We're so glad to have our Tessa. She is such a great little 3-year-old and were so glad to have her in our family.
Tessa (while brushing her teeth): I have to brush my teeth so the bugs won't get in my teeth.
Mom: . . . mmm
(I should probably tell her that won't happen but I do like her brushing her teeth)
Tessa: I want to dig in the garden and want you to scratch my back.
Mom: We can't do them both at the same time. Your options are to either dig in the garden or I can scratch your back.
Tessa: So dig in garden or scratch back or watch movie.
Mom: Nice try, slick.
(After giving Tessa 2 bowls to hold one in each hand)
Tessa: I can't hold all the things. I don't have 7 hands.
(Tessa loves yelling and testing how echoey new locations are - pretty funny when she want to test the echo at the library foyer. This was said when testing the echo of a locker room gym.)
Tessa: Hey!
Echo: Hey
Tessa: That was my friend, echo.
Some of Tessa's mispronunciations are so cute to me. Here are some of the most unusual.
- Frizbee is Spizeree.
- Finale is Premalmy
- Bathroom is Baffroom
- Scootaloo (a my little pony character) is Scootadoodoo
- Sippy cup is sicky cup
- Litter is glitter.
There are more that I can't think of at the moment. Usually I'll just translate what Tessa says automatically in my head so they're hard to remember as they are incorrrectly.
Tessa cracks me up. Let me catch you up on some of her latest.
Mom: Aunt Allison is growing a baby in her tummy. And Aunt Kylee is growing a baby in her tummy too...
Tessa: And Zach too.
Tessa: I don't like the wind.
Mom: Oh, yeah. It's kind of windy today.
Tessa: That hurt the wind's feelings?
Mom: No, the wind doesn't have feelings.
(Pause)
Tessa: Or ears.
Mom: True.
(Tessa tripped stepping into a small wading pool and briefly went under the water.)
Tessa: I'm not a mermaid.
Tessa: Are mermaids people? (As in are mermaids people or animals?)
Jenny is such a cutie at one-year-old. At her one year appointment, she measured at the 50th percentile for weight and 88th percentile for height. She has been doing really well with her milestones too. She is saying "mama" and "dada" and I think she has been saying them to the appropriate parent. She has also been saying "T, t, t" (maybe for Tessa though I'm not sure). She'll also say "baba" (maybe for bottle though I'm also not sure).
She has her two bottom teeth now though no opposing top teeth. They are super close to breaking through though so hopefully that will happen soon. Teething has been a bit harder for her than it was for Tessa. She gets fussy and super feverish. She is a really good eater though. She isn't picky about anything and has transitioned to cow's milk easily though she doesn't care for sippy cups much at all and would much rather have her bottle.
We've been working on sleep training with her a bit lately. We started a few months ago and have been just gradually working on it. I think lately we've been making really good progress on it though.
She has been getting around all different ways - crawling normally, crawling monkey style some, cruising, and walking a little. I think I'd even call her a toddler now. She loves trying to walk. She'll take 5-10 steps whenever the mood strikes and then fall. Here you'll see a few different means she uses to get around independently.
She loves the doll shown in the video. It is probably her favorite toy and will hug it excitedly and plays with it all the time. She also loves headbands. She sees Tessa wear them so she has really gotten into them too and will get super excited when she can figure out how to put one on.
One funny quirk about Jenny lately is she loves her shoes. She can pick out her own pair from the mud room and bring them to me to ask me to put them on her. She'll also try to put them on herself. And if you put your shoes on, she gets even more determined to have hers on too. I'm not sure if she just likes her shoes because older people where them and she likes to try to be older or if she just likes going out so she wants to put on her shoes because she wants to go.
She enjoys the water and we've done quite a bit of swimming and playing in the splash pad this summer.
Jenny is such a sweet, loving little girl. At times she seems like a daddy's girl while at other's she seems like a mama's girl. She'll go to dad and want to be played with and cuddled. And then she'll also get super excited when she sees me come home from work too. Mostly she's just a loving sweet, girl to all. I can ask her for kisses and she'll lean in completely open-mouthed and lay a wet one on me. It's so sweet. She is just still such an easy-going, happy little girl and we feel so lucky to have her.
