13 month update

It's been a while since I've written about what Eleanor is up to, so here is the latest.

• She still only has 4 teeth, but that doesn't stop her from eating!  Last night we went out for Mexican food and she was shoveling the rice into her mouth with both hands.  The girl still loves food - she even eats tofu cubes!  Among her favorites are avocado, strawberries, macaroni and cheese, chicken, and peas.
• I used to try signing with her all the time, but I finally gave up.  It was so hard to get her to even look at me.  For example, I'd be doing the sign for cat over and over, but she was looking at the cat instead of me so it didn't do any good.  One of the signs I did the most was "more."  Well, in the past few weeks we've gotten together a few times with a friend whose baby does the sign for more, and all of a sudden Eleanor is doing it!  Yesterday she ate a fig newton, looked at her empty tray, and did the sign.
• She is quite verbal.  It's kind of strange though, because at any given time she seems to have about 5-10 words that she says but there are lots of words that she used to say.  She'll master a word, say it for several weeks, and then it seems to disappear and a new one comes in.  She still completely understands her old words when I say them, but she doesn't produce them herself.  Sadly, one of her words that has disappeared is "mama."  :(  Anyway, here are her current words:  toys, daddy, cat, help me ("mep me"), this, tree, yes, go (on her little car), nose, and book.  Other words that she still understands and USED to say are hi, turtle, heart, swing, dinosaur (di-saur), button, mama, picture, painting, desert, thank you, and telephone (teh-own).
• She is still not walking.  When she didn't crawl until 10 months I was starting to get a little worried about her physical development, but now I know she'll walk when she's ready.  She can cruise furniture, push her toys, and even walk while just holding my hand.  She doesn't stand without holding on either, but I know she can because once she did but sat down as soon as she realized she was doing it by herself.  I'm trying to be patient but this 22ish lb baby is starting to get a little heavy to carry around!!  Yesterday I was struggling to find my keys to unlock the car, it was over 90 degrees, and my back was aching.  Sometimes I think it will be much easier when I can put her down!
• Eleanor loves books and blocks.  Sometimes when she's in a quiet mood she can entertain herself with those two things for over and hour.  She'll sit there with her books and "read" to herself.  The other day I watched her build a tower with her little blocks.  She actually had 4 of them stacked up and was trying to put a 5th one on when she knocked it over.  Her whole body wriggled around in excitement when she watched it fall over!  She has these other blocks that stack and she loves playing with them too.  I'm amazed by how well she can put them together.

• She also LOVES music.  She now dances most of the time when you start singing, and there are several songs that she'll do motions with.  One of the songs from her music class has several verses that say stuff like "clap your hands", "wiggle all around", "touch your nose", etc. and she does the right action with each verse with no prompting.  Of course, I am sick of this song because we've sung it so many times!  :)
• Eleanor is quite opinionated.  She knows what she wants and is NOT happy when she doesn't get it.  We've already had full tantrums where she screams, throws her whole body on the ground, and flails her arms and legs.  I thought that didn't start until MUCH later!  Usually it's just the screaming though.  This happens because she sees her swing out the back door and wants to go but I say no ("It's raining outside, Eleanor.  We can't swing when it's raining."), she wants my camera or cell phone, or she is crawling straight for the a room like the laundry room or bathroom and I jump ahead of her and shut the door.  (Those doors usually stay shut but sometimes we forget.)  Yesterday Hunter made the mistake of putting her on her tricycle when he knew we were about to leave to go out to dinner.  I have never heard her scream as loud as she did when we took her off of the tricycle and put her in the car!
• She is getting into dress up a little bit.  She knows where I keep her shoes and she will open the drawer, pull out the shoes, and bring them to me to put them on.  She does the same thing with hair bows and hats.  The other day we were folding laundry and whatever item she handed to Hunter, he put on her.  Notice the socks that go all the way up her legs in this picture!  When I took them off she handed them back to me and held up one foot in the air!