Rayah: A Year & A Half

My little baby girl is a year and a half! So much has happened since she turned 1 and I haven’t recorded any of it on this blog – it’s just so hard to find the time. But, thankfully I have many little moments recorded in my iPhone app “Momento” and so I’m going to share a little about my sweet daughter over the last six months. To begin, here is a little collage to mark some new skills she developed, character traits we discovered or things we just love about her…

Video – Learning to walk

Some other new skills she developed are playing tag (otherwise known as “RUN, CHASE!” in our home), playing catch, praising the Lord (lifting her hands up in the air), dancing, waving, drinking from a straw, putting her finger up her nose, grinding her teeth (thankfully she isn’t doing this as much any more), singing, learning to pillow fight, learning to understand and follow commands (she seems to know what we are saying a lot more than we give her credit for), playing on play structures and going down slides, blowing kisses, walking on her tip toes, learning to point to her ears, eyes, mouth and nose.

Video – Blowing Kisses

She’s also been slowly developing in the communication arena with a few signs such as “please”, “thank you”, “Jesus”, “milk”, and “more”. Her few words are “mama”, “dada”, “baby”, “yeah”, “up”, “oh no”, “uh oh”, “woof”, “baa”, and “yummy”.

Video – Chatty Cathy

Some firsts for Rayah – first ponytail, first nasty sickness, first flu with puking & diarrhea, first time playing outside in the leaves in the fall and the snow in the winter and the puddles in the spring , first time out, first spanking on the bum, first hotdog at a weiner roast, first time eating an apple on her own.

Video – Messy eater & screaming

She thankfully seems to be growing out of her stage of “playing strange” and is much less anxious about mommy & daddy leaving her sight and warms up to new people much better. She still has her moments and mommy & daddy are still definitely her favorite people, but she has made great strides & we don’t have to be afraid about leaving her with a babysitter any more.

I also weaned her from her morning nap, which was rather funny for those first couple weeks, as she kept falling asleep everywhere…

Some other things about Rayah – she loves going outside & will bring us her rubber boots to let us know, she loves reading books, she’s very stubborn about feeding herself, after a couple months of pure frustration she is now an amazing napper and sleeper, she’s only a couple pounds lighter than Justice and has an amazing pot belly :), even with her lack of words, she is an amazing communicator with all her expressive sounds and actions, she has very specific desires that she is quite determined to let us know about, the way she jabbers when reading a book that sometimes sounds like she’s Japanese, she has an adorable waddle and is a little clumsy so she ends up falling a lot, she gives great hugs and pats us on the back as she snuggles in.

I love you Rayah!