New images in the gallery above. At 15 months Remi’s vocabulary is now 19 words strong. Her mastery of English includes:

• Mommy
• Daddy
• Meow (not the sound, she uses it for “cat”)
• That (I contend this was her first word)
• Hot dog (we can’t count this as 2 words since she only uses them for one meaning)
• Ice
• Uh-oh (she uses this one a lot)
• Bowl (we have no idea how she learned this one)
• Bottle
• Baby
• Bow (her word for any non-cat animal)
• Be-bo (our word for Belly Button)
• Bear
• Water
• Eye
• Hi
• Light
• Ball
• Book (not surprising since she plays with her books all day long)

*edit* She just said a new word during lunch today: “Bean”

That’s 19 20 and counting!

This video is a bit longer than what I typically like to post but I don’t have time to edit it & she does something really cool at the end. It’s only like 90 second long so it’s not that bad.

We were getting pretty sick of hearing stories about 10 month old babies walking.  At 14 months Remi was content with crawling.  Why bother walking if you are lightning fast as a crawler?

She has been standing for 2-3 months.  Teasing us with the idea of walking by bouncing up and down as if dancing to music.  She would even cheat by walking while holding on to furniture.  Despite our best efforts to encourage an untethered step Remi wasn’t interested.

About 3 weeks ago she took 2 steps for mommy.  She let go of her furniture support and let her legs take her for a brief test.  We thought she was ready to enter the bipedal world but there was to be no more excitement for another 2 weeks.  Early this past week Remi took 9 wobbly steps to a pillow as daddy sat in shock.  By Thursday it only took a little encouragement to “stand up” and she would walk with purpose.

By this time next week I expect she will be running agility courses.

Here are a few more recent pics of Rem-Rem.

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12►

Remi’s first birthday is as much a celebration that her parents didn’t screw up too badly for the first 12 months.  No short term effects, at least.

Remi had her first sugar explosion in the form of a cupcake.  She got a Spongebob ball for her birthday (and she loves it).

At 1 year & 18 days old Remi crawled to her toy stroller (loaded with baby Grover) stood up and began “walking” behind the stroller.

It’s not quite as momentous as her first real steps but her first assisted steps are still pretty damn special.

Remi is self aware.  It is only a matter of time before she views us as a human infestation and turns our own weapons against us.

She saw a picture of herself and, without thinking, blurted out, “Remi”.  Of course it sounds more like “Wemi” when she says it.  She may be self-aware but she still can’t pronounce the letter ‘R’.

She turns 1 exactly one week from today.  I have a feeling she might be talking before walking. She has “momma” and “daddy” down and is getting better with many other words that do not contain ‘R’.  “That” is a favorite of hers.  Some combination of “Meow” and “Bow Wow” means any for legged animal.

We are dog-sitting for a few days and that has been a blast for Remi.  Initially the dog was classified as a “Meow” but in less than one day Anna had Remi calling him “Bow wow”.  We notice mimicry popping up all over.  When I change her diaper I rub an alcohol-based sanitizer into my hands. Remi copies the hand movements.  If she gets a hold of a towel she will initiate a game of “Peek-a-boo” by covering her head and ever-so-slowly exposing her face -all while laughing hysterically.  She is impossibly cute.

She loves art and especially text.  She has 3 pieces of art hanging in her room which she must admire for several minutes before leaving.  We have to move from picture-to-picture so Remi can point, touch and smile at each one.  If I wear a t-shirt with printed text she will awkwardly trace the outlines of each letter.  She traces a lot with her magic index finger.  Following patterns in fabric or the corners of a room.  She is a very aware little person.

These are some pics we took as she climbed the stairs today. She was ready for a nap so she got a little moody toward the end.  The climb goes a long way toward helping her nap easily.

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Remi is now 6 months old!

She is sitting up on her own, eating sold food (when we have time), playing peek-a-boo, and fascinated by the cats.  Oh, and she has her first two teeth!

Still no crawling.  She “swims” in place a lot but hasn’t quite figured out how to put that into forward momentum.  She has become a master of pulling things she wants toward her.

Remi is hooked on her first TV show: HBO’s Classical Baby series.

She has noticed TV for brief moments but nothing has quite captivated her like this.  She will sit in her Boppy and watch Classical Baby for a full 30 minutes.  I’m not quite sure what she sees but she cannot tear her eyes away from the show.

It’s all short vignettes (2-5 minutes each) of classical music playing to animated versions of famous works of art. Full credit is given to the composer and artist (for mommy & daddy, presumably).  I can’t wait for the next episode to find out if that two-timing Kandinsky is finally going to fall for Tchaikovsky or that egotistical hussy Wagner.