15 Month Panda Photos

Here's the 15th installment of Eden's panda photos.  Plus one video of her showing off some new movements from her new Sesame Street book "Shake A Leg."

Eden making her point

I've been meaning to make a post about how Eden points to everything.  She started at 11 months and 5 days old (thank you BabyConnect app) - and at that time she would do it absolutely constantly, but kind of randomly and not really connected to anything.  Same thing with her waving, which she started at 9 months 4 days old.  She would wave randomly and repetitively.  To be honest I found it a bit odd!

Now her pointing and waving seem much more toddler-esque, and adorable.  She points to everything in her books, and wants you to tell her what she's pointing to.  Lately she'll say it herself, if it's one of her words.  "Hat," "duck," or various animal sounds when she sees the animal who makes them - and now she'll point out all the "o"s too!  A favorite - in our Tu B'shvat book there is a man with glasses and a hat that she thinks is Daddy, she'll point to that man and say "dada."  

In fact, pointing to things is ALL she wants you to do in a book. You would be lucky to read 25% of the actual words in the book.  If you try while she's pointing to something, she will protest until you stop what you're doing and say what she's pointing to.  She also grabs the pages and turns them with gusto as soon as she's done pointing to things on that page.  She is a speed reader like mama, apparently.

One of the cutest things is when she points to something in the book, then takes her pointer finger and sweeps it toward the door.  We've learned that this means "what I just pointed to is something that I remember seeing out there somewhere."  She does it with fruits she knows we have, certain animals, Sesame Street characters, rubber duckies, her dad, etc.  Lately she's been doing it with stuff we don't know why she would have seen, so maybe it means something else...?

She also just loves to point to people and things to identify them.  She can identify most of her little friends in class ("Where's Kusher?  Where's Chloe?"), family members' pictures ("Where's Bubbe?  Where's Grammy?"), body parts ("where's your head?"), animals, sun or moon... you name it.  When you ask her "where's your friend?" she'll point to the nearest little kid.  When you ask her "where's the baby?" she'll point to the nearest baby.  When you are near a little kid around her age and ask "Where's [NAME]?" she'll point to the little kid because she has picked up from context clues that that's who you mean.

[EDIT: I forgot one of the cutest things!  She loves pointing to herself when you ask her certain things: where's Eden, where's the baby (unless there's another baby around), where's the little girl, where's my sweetheart, where's baby babesquee (our nickname for her).]

Eden also points to things she wants, of course!  We give her fruit for dessert after dinner (oranges, grapes, or bananas) and when she is done humoring us by taking a few bites of what we've offered her she will point in the direction of the fridge where the grapes are.  

Pointing is also a gesture of choice when Eden sees something funny or delightful...

At Catch Air today - playing with a little girl approx. age 6

Goin through the motions

Eden has been doing some song motions since she was 11 months old.  Since that time she has learned the "real" song responses, and does them in rhythm really well!  (This might not be the best example, but it's so hard to catch the best stuff on video!)

Hopefully Mama and Daddy's CONSTANT singing to her had something to do with that?

Eden has been doing the motions to a bunch of songs, actually.  Here's one of her favorites, itsy bitsy spider - very cute, but again, I have not been successful at capturing the best stuff!

Other songs & stories Eden knows the motions to:

• Twinkle twinkle little star
• Wheels on the bus (she likes "open and shut")
• Crocodile Shop (you can see her doing that in this post)
• Bim bam Shabbat Shalom
• Number Dance 
• 5 little monkeys
• Sticky bubblegum
• Row row row your boat 
• Eric Litwin stories (Nut book, I love my white shoes, my buttons)
• Shake a leg (Michael managed to teach her all of these motions somehow, including flap your elbows, make a muscle, and twist your waist)

Sometimes she'll just start doing the motions to something, which we interpret as meaning she wants us to sing that song.

Also, since we use singing to communicate with Eden so much, there are some songs she recognizes - and some she associates with stuff she doesn't like... some of these we've listed before, but we've added a few new ones along the way -

• A baby bath (I want you back) - she loves her bath but she knows it's almost bedtime so she resists it at first
• It's a hair wash night (it's a hard knock life) - she hates hair washing, so she starts shaking her head no every time we sing this one
• Another bath one that we're a bit embarrassed about (dinah won't you blow your horn)
• Let's go change your diaper (let's all go to the lobby)
• Coat and hat/wrap you up/almost home (we made up this tune and use it for lots of transitions)
• I can see you poopin in your chair tonight (in the air tonight - when we see her making poop face in her high chair) 

There are probably more I'm forgetting - Michael, comment on this post if you think of any more!

Fun at the Zoo!

We had so much fun at the zoo this time.  We always do, but this post is chock full of some great videos & pics.  She was super cute & funny.

Here she is exhibiting her true nature as a lion:

Eden loves animals, and monkeys are one of her favorites.  Here she is exuberantly saying "ooh ooh ah ah" after seeing a monkey statue:

Once we got in the monkey observation room, she got really comfortable and was dancing, laughing, playing with other kids & generally providing more entertainment for people than the monkeys (OK, sure, there were no monkeys visible at the time).

Here she is demonstrating how she can do "round & round" and attempting to jump:

Here she is doing a very dramatic up & down:

And now twist your waist and make a muscle (from one of her Sesame Street books):

Another cool milestone - Eden is starting to recognize letters.  Her favorite is the letter "O" - she first learned it from my "The Learning Groove" t-shirt.  She can say "O" and now whenever she sees an "O" around town she excitedly shouts "O!"

Eden can say Yes & No (with her head)

Here's a funny video demonstrating that Eden can now communicate Yes & No.  This makes communicating so much more effective!  Especially since Eden is quite particular about what she wants and doesn't want :-)

Fun Shabbat weekend!

This has been a really great weekend so far.   Friday night was really relaxing and peaceful.  We had Shabbat dinner, Eden was happy & lots of fun, and then Mommy & Daddy got to relax by the fire on a cold night.

Saturday we went to temple in the morning to find they had cancelled services due to (nonexistent) snow and icy roads.  But it turned out about 10-12 people were in the front hallway doing services anyway, and the Rosenthal kids were all playing in the lobby.  Perfect!  Eden got to play with the kids while Mommy & Daddy got to pray a little. 

We didn't take pictures there, but here's Eden's pretty new blue dress while playing with her panda:

Then we went to the zoo after Eden's nap (see separate zoo post - tons of great video there!).  A quick stop by Baby Love, a used baby stuff store, and got several new books for her voracious book appetite.  Here she is saying "chop chop chop!" like a crocodile, because she saw crocodile pics on a book.  She only heard me sing the TLG song "Crocodile Shop" once and she picked this up!  (It's possible that her Aunt Becky sang her a Crocodile song too).

Here's Eden in her jumper for the first time in a few months (we had to raise it higher since she's growing up!):

Eden also can now proficiently say yes & no with her head movements.  This is a huge step in being able to communicate better!

Sunday morning we went to our first of a weekly Jewish parent & child music class through Jewish Kids Groups.  Here's mommy & Eden getting silly together in class :-)

Where's Mr. Michael?

Eden is very attached to her dada - and she knows his name is Mr. Michael too!  If you ask her "where's Mr. Michael," she always points to Daddy!

She is using the word "dada" a lot - both to refer to her Daddy and to anyone who looks like Daddy out in public (bald men, men in hats, men with face scruff), as well as to any daddies or men in books/magazines.  

Here are some recent pictures of Daddy and Eden:

Sipping their morning wakeup juice

Eden the couch potato - lounging on Daddy with a bag o chips (veggie straws)

At Urgent Care on Eden's day 5 of not feeling well...
a good example of how Eden and Daddy zone out to TV
(Mama tends to multitask instead)

Eden Says "Mama!"

Eden has said "dada" for a long time.  For many months she said to refer to almost anything, not necessarily Daddy, but for the last month or so she has realized it means Daddy.  And she has recognized that "Mama" means Mommy, but was incapable of saying it out loud.  Until now!

She's still getting used to saying that consistently to refer to Mommy, but she's close!

Edit:  And here's one of mama getting her to say it, mouth full of orange :)

Look who's got the doggie bag

Random Eden fun

I thought I'd just share a bunch of tidbits from over the last month or so...

Eden likes the children's section at Barnes & Noble - we can walk there!

Jamming with Mommy

We've been to the zoo 3-4 times since we got a membership - she loves it! This is the bird section - a big nest :-)

 She loves saying "hoo hoo" like an owl (and monkey), 

so it was great that these pigeons says "hoo hoo" as well!

She knows the word "Panda" as it's the largest object in her room!

Eden loves hugging Goldbug (Henry too, but he won't have it)

We spent a few hours at a Sesame Street 25th Anniversary celebration at Fernbank.  In reality it was quite lame - they only had Cookie Monster, story times and an arts & crafts area - but Eden had fun.

We also got to the Children's Museum a bunch, now that we have a membership.

Honking Mommy's nose at the Children's Museum

Eden loves her new Speedracer compact that Bonnie got in a Happy Meal.  She finds it amusing to see her little reflection, and yesterday she must have closed it 20 times - each time saying "ut", which usually means "up" but has also come to mean "help", meaning I opened it back up about 20 times :-)

 

Eden loves her new Hello Kitty CD player/ boombox.  Pressing start & stop is a joy, and dancing too!

We had fun this weekend at the playground at North Ave and Freedom Parkway