An afternoon of reading . . .

Ava has obviously been watching her dad . . . snacking and reading. :o) I guess she's not a fan Ted Kennedy . . .



She's getting to be such a fun little companion during the day. She follows me around all day "helping" me with my chores and keeping me company. She's "reading" her books to herself now, and saying the animal noises for dog, kitty, horse, cow and rooster. Although they do all sound very similar to her favorite, "woof, woof".

She also recently learned the signs for "milk" and "more". I started to try and teach her a few signs when she was about 9 months old, but then she started nodding yes and no and I just figured we'd get by on that. But she started lifting up her hands when I asked her if she was "all done" after eating and so the other day I thought I'd try teaching her the sign for "more". After repeating it only 5 or 6 times during her dinner she started doing it herself. Then the next meal time I taught her the sign for milk and now she uses both pretty proficiently. So the lesson is, wait until they are 15 months old to teach them to sign because then it only takes a few tries instead of days and days with no success.