At 15 months, Sara has finally called me by my name, “Mama”. Daddy has been prominent in her vocabulary for 2 months at least. It’s most often said in the context of joy or happiness like “Dahdeeeeee!”. I notice that my new moniker is used in the context of crying and upsetness like “Mamamamama” in a staccato, sobbing tone. Wayne tells me not to complain. Gotta love the cute girl!
What else about Sara? She’s been busy developmentally the past 2 months.
1. Gross motor skills-she’s cruising on 2 feet. Since 2 weeks ago, she’s been fully walking. She was cruising furniture and walking holding on to us with both hands around her birthday. By Xmas, she was solidly comfortable with one hand holding walking. As January began, she’d take a couple of steps on her own, like falling into Daddy’s arms to something. By early January, she was starting to stand on her own. Then she strung us along for awhile. Luckily, I got to see my friend Sarah watch her child be slow to walk. Indy is now a champion walker. So I’ve been trying not to be too impatient.
Ironically, she chose the weekend we went to Whistler to start walking across the house. We got home to this announcement from Shirley. It took 3 days before Wayne actually got to see her do it. She saved walking distances for command performances. Finally by mid Feb, she started walking like she was not one’s fool. At the Flower and Garden Show, she toddled among the flowers and ponds. See ultissimo.net for photos (2/10/05). So, the only milestone she hasn’t touched yet is running.
2. Fine motor – Sara seems to excel in this one. She seems very mechanically inclined (don’t know anyone like that, do I?). She likes to study a problem and futz with it. Currently she’s fascinated with socks and how to put them on. We’ve been working on our forking skills. She’s expert at putting divits in the table and working on spearing her food. She likes switches and buttons.
3. Verbal – This is a bit slower than everything else. She has several signs. Let me count them 
hat, monkey, dog, cat, bagel, milk, more, all done, up, down, change diaper, sleep, telephone, book, elephant.
Dog just got noticed this week. She loves dogs. Berkeley and Winny (our friends lab and beagle, respectively) love to lick her. Wayne noticed that when she see a photo of a dog she starts to lick her lips. I thought that was awfully cute.
Verbally, she says daddy, mama, yes (really yesh), baba for bottle. She clearly said doll-doll 3 times in front of Wayne and me when she was holding all 3 household doll-dolls. But she’s never said that again. I thought she said dirty once, but that could not be corroborated. I think she’s mostly holding onto the words out of stubborness. We’ll see. She’s able to communicate with pointing and grunting a lot. Maybe too well.
Her comprehension is spot on. She can point to a cow, sheep, dog, cat, flower, fish, etc in books when she’s in a good mood. I’ve found explaining things too her and including her in my tasks makes her much happier. We’ve thrown trash away, picked up things, and played with laundry together.
The nice thing about a blog is you don’t have to pay attention to this if you don’t want to. But it makes for a nice recording of these early years. All this stuff starts to blur together.