Vocabulary.

We are amazed on a daily basis by Brooke's vocabulary. She is so expressive, using body language and voice inflection appropriately. For example, even if she is just babbling, you can tell if she's trying to ask a question because her voice gets really high, she turns her head to one side, and she furrows her eyebrows. We've already gotten to the point where she gets frustrated sometimes when I don't understand what she's trying to say. Luckily, between speaking and signing, she can say most of the basic words we use on a daily basis.

The emails I get say she should be speaking about 3-5 words at 14 months. Well, here's her current list:

Daddy (pronounced Da-ee)
Mom (pronounced A-mom)
juice
milk (both spoken & signed)
cheese (pronounced deez)
please (pronounced peez, both spoken & signed)
more (both spoken & signed)
bath (pronounced baff)
Elmo
book
ball
bow (as in hair bow, proud of this one)
spoon (pronounced poon)
nose
Drew (as in Uncle Drew)
two (still no "one" though...)
no
hi
bye
teeth (pronounced teef)
baby (pronunced beebee, both spoken & signed)
me
bear
hot dog (thanks to the Hot Dog Dance on MMC)

On top of these she can tell you what sound a cow, horse, dog, cat, & sheep make, as well as Santa & a train (Ho & choo, respectively.) If you can't tell from the list, she's pretty much mastered the long "o" and long "e" sounds.

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, not to brag about Brooke's genius (like "OMG can you believe how smart she is?"), but to document it so I can a) get it into her baby book at some point and b) keep an eye on her progress. And, also, so I can compare her progress with any future children we have, because, let's face it: parents compare. I'm pretty sure our future children will fall short, but only because she's our firstborn. (Birth order studies? Yeah, they're super accurate. I'm married to the definition of a firstborn.) She gets all of our attention; we read books all day, ask her questions all day, point things out to her all day. She just soaks it all in and doesn't have to worry about siblings distracting either her or us. It's a pretty sweet deal, and we keep telling her to enjoy it while it lasts :)

And because I'm seriously lacking in the picture-taking/posting lately, here are a few from Valentine's Day. Let's talk about how SHE HAS A PONYTAIL!! I love it. I think she looks like heaven. The husband disagrees, but clearly I don't care. So so cute!

Oh, and also...OMG can you believe how smart she is???