Little Ruth is one and a half today!! I look back at baby pictures and hardly recognize her. What an amazing little firecracker and sweetheart she is. Everyone tries to decipher who she looks like, and I'm still at a loss. Sometimes a glimmer of Vera or Edie... I sometimes see my older sister and brother when they were babies. Ben thinks she looks like his grandfather, Hoyt (husband of the original Ruth Cater). Anyway, she is a little beauty and just adorable in every way (to me anyway :).
She still doesn't have a ton of words but communicates really well. Her newest words are BOP which she says very seriously and emphatically when she wants you to stop doing something (tickling, changing her diaper, taking an iphone away..), NO (which she learned pretty quickly after meeting her cousin Zuzu), shio - cheerio/cereal, Siiii - outside, I love how she says "oh" after a comment you make (she's done this forever). Like, "mom's at work" - R: "oh". "This isn't for babies" - R: "oh". Like she knows and understands what we are saying when obviously she doesn't. She also says "ummm" when you ask her a question, usually followed by gibberish.
A couple of my favorite things lately are when we first met her little cousin and she spontaneously started playing duck duck goose with the group, ducking everyone's heads and saying gooo then running (out of the room sometimes). I didn't even know she'd played it before and thought it was pretty sophisticated! :) At mealtimes, she loves to initiate saying grace - holding everyone's hands and saying "meh!" when we say amen. After I fed her once using the spoon airplane method, she will now make airplane noises and fly her own spoon to her mouth - it's pretty cute. I love how she gives good hard hugs and kisses, loves her Lion, says hi and charms everyone in the grocery store, airport, airplane, etc.
She is quite the firecracker though - emphatically saying UH-UH! if you ask for some of her popsicle - unless you catch her in a sweet mood. She screams so loud sometimes that her little fists shake. Usually she is good about grounding herself enough to quiet down and say/sign please or whatever the better option was. I have to be very vigilant when she's around other babies because she tends to hit them in the face, pull them to the ground, etc. It's so disconcerting!! At least she'll usually sign/say sorry afterwards if I make her. I seriously think she just loves the reaction and look on their poor little faces :( She fought like a little cat with her cousin in CA, but I think that was more rivalry than looking for a reaction. Wish we'd got a video of it! Anyway, hoping it's all a quick phase.
Anyway... I'm sure I'll add things as I think of them. Basically we all adore our little Root.
