Bean rules

This stage, 13 months and change, it kinda rules. Except for the teeth. Other than the teeth, this stage rules. It seems every day Bean is amazing us with new tricks, new feats of comprehension.

Last week we realized that Bean understands the word "tummy". In fact, if you say the word tummy or ask her where her tummy is, she immediately starts patting her tummy. (And then she claps for herself.) We suspect Bean learned this from "circle time" at school where they do some action songs like "If you're happy and you know it". She will also pat her head, clap her hands, and stomp her feet on command. Seriously. Awesome.

On Saturday she started using the word "duckie" around the house. Later, she said "duckie" at a store. We followed her gaze and indeed saw that there was a duck on a very high shelf in the store. So she not only used the word, but knew that it applied to an entirely different duck than the one she had seen at home.

This morning, for the first time, she used her banana sign in reference to a wooden banana toy, recognizing that it was a representation of a real banana.

As I write this, it may sound like these are trivial accomplishments. But her brain is starting to make connections between the real and the imaginary, she is able to categorize objects that look different but are really the same, and she is recognizing words like "in", "open", and "closed"... She's starting to learn and develop so rapidly, and it's an amazing thing to watch.