All of the Little Things

They add up.

In just the last week I've noticed so many 'little' things with Ruby. They are likely milestones or progress towards milestones that I didn't notice with the other kids, but when you work so hard on skills, and when you scrutinize every movement or sound your child makes, you notice a lot.

Ruby talks a lot. Most of her talking is babbling, but she has many consonants: m, d, b, l, and then vowel sounds (mostly 'uh', but sometimes 'oh'). She says "more" dozens of times every meal. It ranges from "mmmm" to "moh-rh", and I love it. Ruby says, "ah duh" when we are done with meals. We've worked forever on showing her the sign for "all done" and shaking her hands at the end of each meal. She sometimes will shake her hands randomly, but now she says "ah duh" and looks right at you. She signs "fish". Not a sign that most could recognize (it's basically one hand shaking), but I'm certain that the sign we do every day with her books is catching on with her.

She squats down lower than ever when she's picking something off of the floor. She used to plop down to sitting if she had to squat at all, but now she's able to stay on her feet much lower. And she LOVES to crawl up the stairs. Every time we go up the stairs I put her down and she scales them. So well! She knows it's a big deal too because when she gets to the top, she sits down, looks at me and smiles and giggles.

Ruby knows routines. This is good news, since I'm a routine person :) After every meal (once she says "ah duh"), I take her out of her chair and put her on her feet facing the chair. Then I help her push it back into the corner. She LOVES this and giggles the whole way. When we go upstairs after dinner, she crawls right into the bathroom and pulls herself up on the bath edge. She knows it's bath time. And when I read to her before her nap or bedtime, she knows that when I put the books away, it's time to sing a song and go to bed. She turns herself onto my shoulder, smiles and snuggles and starts to suck her thumb.

The tongue. It's one of my biggest sources of frustration for Ruby. I want her to not have her tongue wagging for the many health reasons, but even more so because I don't want people to underestimate and judge her because of it. The last 16 months have found me working to get that tongue to stay in her mouth around the clock, to the point where some days I feel like it's all I do. While we are still not 'there', Ruby's tongue is in her mouth way more than it ever has been. Not only does she pull it in pretty consistently when I tell her to, or when I tap her chin, but way less pictures that I take show the tongue out. 

I LOVE Ruby kisses! She used to give very wet kisses, as many babies do, but in the last month, she has become quite adept at making an 'mmm' sound and kissing with closed lips. She will definitely do it on command too. My favorite thing is when she looks at you, leans in slightly and says "MMMM"; she likes kisses too.

Ruby follows commands very well. She's not great at obeying 'no', but she's at least as good as my other two were at this age. And when we are doing books or flash cards, she will hand objects back to me when I ask her. We've been trying to teach Ruby to not throw her cup when she's done eating, so we've shown her where to put it on her tray; she now will do that 90% of the time. And after eating with a fork (which she does well), she will now hand it to us rather than dropping it on the floor.

Ruby is pointing! Kind of :) Another big thing we've been working on forever is Ruby using her pointer finger to point while also pulling her other fingers under her palm. We are not quite there on the finger-tucking (she's done it twice, unprompted), she is very much using her pointer finger in a more dominant way, and all on her own. She 'points' with it all of the time now.

Waving is something Ruby has done for months, but it's taken off a lot more in the last few weeks. She knows what signals a wave too. When the bus pulls up to the stop in the afternoon, Ruby waves furiously at the yellow vehicle because she knows she will see Maddux and Eli seconds later. And when she hears the garage door open, she looks at me, says "duh" and waves: Daddy's home.