Harper's Milestones

I'm a talker. Pure and simple. Always have been, always will be. So when Harper came along I often wondered whether she'd be outgoing and extroverted like me or shy and introverted like her dad. When she was born she was very laid back and was always content. She didn't cry or fuss much unless she was hungry... but let's be real here, we all do that when we're "hangry" so we didn't factor that in to her personality type. She was quiet and was content doing her own thing. It seemed to me that not only was she going to get her looks from her dad, she was going to get his personality as well. But then Harper turned one and that all changed.

Harper hit quite a few milestones when she turned a year old. She hit the toddler stage running and is in to everything. Stairs are by far her favorite thing. We go up and down flights of steps more times than I'd like to count a day. She's learned to hold on to a rail to get down them or to crawl down them backwards when rails aren't available. Outside is her second favorite place to be. We ride her Cozy Coupe up and down the driveway or go for strolls in the neighborhood. Despite the significant differences that can be seen in her mobility and interests as an infant to a toddler, her communication skills have grown by far the most. 

Before Harper turned a year old her vocabulary was pretty limited. Sure she knew the typical words like dada, mama, papa, hey, and bye but that was pretty much it. Not long after she hit a year old she added words like nana (banana), apple, outside, inside, more, Rimy, Rimshot, dog, "ruff, ruff", and various other small words that would be expected from a child her age. As a teacher I was proud of her new vocabulary and the fact that she was picking up on things in her everyday world. But when Harper hit fourteen months, I was floored.

Over the last month Harper has learned to string words together to form sentences! I can't believe it either ladies. Sentences aren't typical until kids hit the two year mark. Everyday Harper asks "What's that?" a hundred times. When we got back from the beach my sister asked her if she liked the beach and with a big grin she responded, "I liked it". As Harper was showing her ability to climb down her Nana and Papa's steps at their home, she looked straight at my dad and said "Look what I did". Seriously, it's amazing! But don't get me wrong, Harper still has a long way to go in the language department despite her long strides. There are times she'll spit out words and phrases that I completely understand and then there are other times when she sounds just like she's learning Chinese. It's the oddest thing to see her go from one end of the spectrum to the other but for now I'm going to hold onto the excitement that despite that she's her daddy's spitting image, she's gonna be an avid talker with a large vocabulary just like her mom :D!