Jadzia walks and talks and smooches

Jadzia is getting to be quite the pro at walking, especially when there's music to groove along to. Not only that but she knows some more words. She quite clearly says Mommy, Daddy, pretty, uh-oh, thank you, and Hi. She also says something that sounds like "William". She's an excellent mimicker, aswell. Today when William was playing guns, she imitated the "Pshoo" sound of a lazer so she could get in on the fun.

And for extra cuteness: Jadzia gives kisses. She says "Mmmmmmn" while making as much of a kissy face she can make (depending on how close she is to bursting into laughter), then she'll either kiss you on the lips, wait for you to kiss her on the lips, or giggle and walk away. Yesterday she started to do this for a picture of me making a kissy face.

Jadzia's pre-first-birthday race

As Jadzia's first birthday rapidly approaches, there's a race to see which ability will manifest itself first: walking or coherent talking.

Jadzia is getting very good an standing up unassisted in the middle of the floor, and has been doing the furniture shuffle for a while now, but still prefers crawling as her primary means of transportation.

As far as talking, her communication skills are growing rapidly. I have the definite impression that she understands 90% of what I say. She has several hand signals: waving, pointing (at nothing in particular-it's just fun to get adults to turn their heads), clapping, the signs for more (which she tends to use interchangeably with clapping, for apprieciation, as in "more Christmas tree") and the sign for milk. She nods yes, and shakes her head no (the nod being accompanied by "ya, ya, ya, ya, ya"). She says "Hi", only it sounds more like "Hieeee". Also she says something that sounds somewhat like "Doggy" to describe any animal that even vaguely resembles a dog (such as a chicken). I can't be sure, but amongst her babbling I think I heard her say "William" and some other almost words and names that I can't recall right now.

Today she kept saying "Daddy" as clear as can be. Unfortunately, since Daddy wasn't home, she used it to refer to various inanimate objects and people. That doesn't mean she didn't know what she was saying. I figure she must have meant something like "That's Aedan's Daddy, where's my Daddy?" or "This toy belongs to Daddy," or "Daddy would get a kick out of this" or "That shiny doorknob is so great, it reminds me of Daddy."

Yes, she is a near vocabulary master. Still, talking is a complicated skill, and we'll probably see steps before we see sentences.

I'm going to go ahead and post a video below that has nothing to do with walking and talking and everything to do with the hilarity of watching my almost one year old attempt to wake a dead-to-the-world sleeping almost three year old:

William says Mama

Yesterday, as I was feeding my five-month-old son, he looked up at me and said "Mama". He did it again while we were playing, looked right at me and said "Mama." His cries now tend to sound like "Ma! mamamamamama."

I admit, these "Mama"s are usually followed by a string of "Ga Ga Ga Ba Wa Goo Grrrngg" and other noises that could be interpreted to mean any word in the English language (or any other language for that matter). So whether or not William actually knows the meaning of the word "Mama" or whether he is just exercising his vocal cords is unclear.

I, of course, choose to believe that he says "Mama" because he loves his Mommy. It makes me feel all happy and cuddly inside.