One smart cookie!

You guys...Nory is getting WAY too smart.  Seriously.  Within the past week or so, she has figured out the following:

• She likes to play with pillows (they're awesome to belly flop on) so the other day we basically let her have every decorative pillow in the living room.  They ended up being piled next to the couch.  She then (when I left, of course) used those pillows to climb up onto the couch.  Ben said she was very proud of herself.  I don't know if she was piling the pillows on purpose, or if it just "happened", but I'm still not letting her play with all the pillows for a while.  Just in case...

• At one point, while playing on the small couch where I was sitting, she found the newspaper we had tossed on the window sill to get it out of her reach.  She got pretty excited about it...I assumed because she was about to yank it out of the window sill and destroy it.  But she just pointed and jabbered at it...and then signed "book".  She was so excited because she knew what it was.  Something to read.  How awesome is that?

• She's getting really good at following directions (sometimes).   We can tell her to go get her cup, or find her monkey, or bring us a book, or even go to the bathroom, and she'll do it.  Sometimes she'll do it right away, and sometimes we have to repeat (and repeat...) but she usually just toddles right over and does it.  

• Speaking of the bathroom, when we ask if she needs to go to the bathroom (to get her diaper changed) she signs bathroom and walks to the gate.  She has even (once or twice) signed bathroom *before* we've asked her if she needs to go.  So maybe soon she'll start telling us when she needs a change instead of the other way around. 

• I've started giving Nory sippy cups that don't have handles on them.  Normally, this is not a problem, but if Nory wants to pick her cup up while holding something else, it's a bit of a challenge.  She figured out that she could stand her cup up, squat down, bite the spout, and stand up.  She then uses her free hand to tilt the cup so she can drink, but generally continues to carry it with her teeth.  I think we might go back to handle cups for a while, but still, I'm impressed with her problem solving.

• She hit a couple developmental milestones that we weren't really aware of.  I noticed that within a day or so of bringing home a stacking toy, she could get the rings back on the stick.  Not monumental, but she did it.  She's also started to spin in circles.  She basically just walks in a really small circle, but the circles are getting smaller.  She does one turn, stops, giggles, and then does another.  

• Just now, as I was typing, Nory sat down and picked up a book to "read".  She had it upside down, but that usually doesn't bother her.  She just turned it right side up.   

I love being her Mama and getting to see all of these things.  She is so curious about everything, and it's just so much fun to watch.