Our Little Foof

It seems like most of my posts recently have been about Luke and Emma, because that’s where all the interesting conversation is now.  But Ruth has been up to so much lately as well, so I need to take a moment to post about her doings.

First, she has tons of words now.  Of course, most of them require inside knowledge or an interpreter to understand, but they count anyway:

- Mama
- Dada (or Da-DOOOH – especially right when he gets home from work)
- Emma
- chguck (Luke – pronounced with a very German-sounding guttural beginning blend)
- bebe (baby)
- bah (ball – plus sign)
- ba-ba (Bible)
- boo (book – plus sign, pronounced like “book” without the “k”)
- mih (milk – plus sign)
- wah (water – plus sign)
- no
- no, no
- noooooooooo (no, emphatically – usually addressed to a sibling)
- goo mah (thank you, mama – or anyone)
- muh mama (yes, mama)
- pah (potty – plus sign)
- duh (done – plus sign)
- uh-huuuuuuuuuuuh (yes, emphatically!)

I’m sure this doesn’t cover them all, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  She’s also much more involved in communication and understanding what is said to her.  The other day she found my garden gloves and brought them to me asking to have them put on her hands.  When I put them on her, I said, “Go show Luke!”  She toddled off down the hallway calling “chguck!”

Today I asked her to go get a new diaper.  She walked all the way from the kitchen (where I was) to her room, got the diaper and brought it back to me.  By the time she rounded the end of the hallway within view of the kitchen, she could hardly walk for giggling with pride over her accomplishment!

She loves to participate in whatever tasks we are doing.  When the kids are getting dressed in the morning or ready for bed in the evening, she’s constantly picking up pieces of clothing and handing them to their owners, putting shoes away, taking diapers out of the basket, putting diapers in the basket, taking more diapers out of the basket – whatever seems productive and similar to what we are doing.  It’s hilarious to see her pick up Luke’s or Emma’s shirt or sock, go toddling across the room to the appropriate person (yea, she knows) calling his or her name, handing over the item and then saying “Goo mah.”  Now this is her way of saying “Thank you,” so I’m not sure if she’s prompting a response from the recipient, or if she thinks this is also the way to say “You’re welcome.”  We’ll see.

She’s also really good at giving “squishy face smiles” upon request.  She’ll stick out her chin, smile really big and scrunch up her nose and eyes.  Priceless.

Her walking is really kind of funny.  It looks like her hips and thighs remain stationary while her lower legs kick out from the knee.  Yesterday she was trying to sit on a child-sized chair in the children’s room.  Normally she would climb into a chair face-forward and then turn herself around.  But yesterday she was trying to sit down by backing up into the chair.  It was the funniest thing I have ever seen.  She was doing her little leg kicks, but not making any backward progress, just basically kind of marching (or dancing or waddling) in place.  She kept looking over her shoulder to see if she was any closer and finding that she wasn’t!