17 months!

On Saturday Kisa will be 17 months old.

Last night Matt and I let her watch some home videos (of herself) that we had put on youtube, and I was amazed that I seriously have almost no recollection of baby Kisa. It might be the fatigue, or just selective memory, but my daughter is a toddler in basically all my memories of her. It was weird to see her drinking from a bottle and cooing and blinking in her Grandpa's lap.

I think that seeing my child every day makes me oblivious to the fact that she is actually growing and moving forward, so instead I just project backwards and think she must have always been this smart and done this many things. Although, come to think of it, I do remember that in November she knew how to make one animal sound (sometimes- a monkey), and now she has mastered the following: cat, dog, snake, horse, elephant, duck, bear, tiger, sheep, ladybug, dragon, dinosaur (you know- all the important ones).

My favorite part of this phase is watching her sense of humor develop. She has learned to nod her head "yes" and shake her head "no". She also likes to use the actual word no, which comes out more like "mmmm... nah", like she has to think about it (for example: "Kisa, do you have a dirty diaper?" "Mmmmmm... nah." I guarantee you she does.)

Anyway, she likes to answer yes or no questions, which she does very emphatically, although her answers are rarely true. She also doesn't really use the word "mama", but if I ask her if she can say "mama", she will either a) nod her head and smile (but not say it) or b) laugh and say "dada" instead. Little stinker.

I think I am going to start keeping a log of new things I see her picking up, that way I can get a better idea of her progress. Since Christmas, she has:

- Learned how to build towers with her MegaBlocks (her new favorite activity of all time)
- Learned "Ta-DA!" (with arm movements of course)
- Begun crawling up on objects and using some objects as bridges to other objects (ex. kitchen chair to kitchen table, toilet to counter, etc)... makes me CRAZY
- Learned how to pick out a DVD from the shelf, pop it out of the box, turn on the xbox and tv, insert the disc and start playing it... this one also makes me crazy
- Also, recently, but I'm not sure when, she has started waving for "hi" and not just "bye". When she comes into bed with us at night, she has to say hi/wave to Matt before she lays down and goes back to sleep... it's very cute.

I think that is all for now, but I'm sure I will come up with more later, or she'll learn something new tomorrow.