My Little Sponge

For the first few months of life you are really just trying to keep your baby alive...am I wrong? :)

You feed them. You clean them. You change them. You keep them warm and safe. You entertain them. You stimulate their brains with books, music and the sound of your voice. For the first couple months you get no response really, and then they start to smile, which brings tears to your eyes. And then they laugh, which is the best sound you have ever heard...but you still don't really know if what you are doing has any affect on them.

Does she really know what waving good-bye means? Does she really recognize this song I keep singing? Does she really know who Mama and Dada are?

Practicing faces in the mirror

And then around 10-11 months everything starts to sink in...and now at 14 months, it is a whole new world. 

My husband can say "where is Mama?" and Marlo will point to me. I can walk in a room and she will say "Mama," which warms my heart every time it happens. Of course it doesn't happen every time with me, but it does with the dog. For some reason Marlo has known Ellie's name since she was about 7 months old, and every time Ellie saunters into the room you hear "Hi Ellie! Hi Ellie!" I wish there was that much enthusiasm when it came to me.

She knows to point to things that she wants, and is slowly learning names for things and directions like "uh" for "up" and "ahh" for "out." It took her one sitting to learn how to use a fork! Granted it isn't perfect, but she knows how to hold it, stab things and put it in her mouth...and I squeal with delight every time she does it. Ok, enough bragging from this silly mom...to get to my point...

Now that she is a crazy absorbant sponge, she is starting to mimic everything I do during the day too. She saw me put Vaseline on my lips (our house is crazy dry) and now she is obsessed with the Vaseline container. She is able to get it open, but of course instead of putting it on her lips she puts it in her mouth - delicious! If I start to put her toys away and say "put the blocks in the bag" she will mimic me and put all the blocks in the bag with me.

She sees me put on a scarf every day and now her favorite thing to do is wrap things around her neck - which is not a good habit to have! Any string or cord type object she gets her hands on she puts over her head, tries to wrap around her neck and then looks up at me with this beaming smile. Of course I try to tell her no, but we aren't to the point of understanding that just yet...

When I am getting ready and blowing my hair dry she will pretend like she is holding a dryer in her hands and put her other hand in her hair like I do.


My favorite thing she does is when we have dance party and she tries to mimic my dance moves. It could be the cutest thing ever. That or when she picks up any object and puts it to her ear like a phone and says "Hi" or "Hi Dada."

This stage is by far my favorite of her little life so far. I love that I have this little being that is so curious and attentive to everything I do because all she wants to do is learn. Thankfully we haven't gotten to the point of her repeating everything I say because that would be a disaster...

What are your kids doing these days that you get a kick out of?