Evidence of Gia's intelligence ...

Gia is both smart and funny! The latest evidence:

1. By 6am, she's signing to put on her shoes and go outside to see the birds and squirrels (and has recently added "Nana!" to remind us that she wants to go out with Nana).
2. She goes directly for the "outside clothes and shoes" box by the door and opens it when she deems that it's time to play outside.
   
3. She has 38 signs, and is starting to put them together (turkey = "big" + "bird").
   
4. She loves goat brie cheese, and refused to eat her broccoli until it had at least a smudge of brie on it.
5. She hands us the remote control to the ipod dock and starts to dance when she wants us to play music.
6. This morning, she removed from a canister one roll of toilet paper (TP) wrapped in paper, and I asked her to put it in the cabinet. She opened the cabinet and sized up the contents (many rolls of TP, and the stack closest to her was made of two unwrapped rolls on top of two wrapped ones), then carefully took out two unwrapped rolls and put them on the ground, and put her wrapped roll on top of the "matching" ones ... then tried to stack the unwrapped rolls on that. Hm.
7. Before Drew put her in her crib tonight, she pointed to the white noise machine to remind him to turn it on.
8. Before bed, she kisses pictures of the family.

That's it for today!

What Gia's like at 16.5 months

At 16.5 months, Gia is becoming more fun by the day. She's very chatty (her spoken communication isn't quite as clear to us as her signing, but she has a lot to say either way), she gives great hugs with her strong, short arms squeezing tightly around the neck of her object of affection, and sweet little kisses on the lips. She's walking more (though mostly with the help of a finger to hold onto), has about 35 signs and 15 spoken words (a few of which overlap), and is very enthusiastic about expressing what she wants. Mostly, that's to be up in someone's arms, eat strawberries, crackers or avocado, or to be outside feeding the squirrels and birds. She's thriving being surrounded by family and nature in the Bay Area.

Gia is still a mommy's girl (which, I have to admit, I really enjoy!), loves being with daddy and Nana, and yet is expanding her horizons to give and receive lots of love from her aunties, uncles, cousins and fans. She enjoys climbing, eating, throwing food, drinking water and milk, and is fascinated by riding the escalator. She loves flopping and playing on the bed, and wants to get her little hands in anything she can ... to figure out how it works. She loves pens and paper (now where did she get that?), and likes to draw on things like ... pillows, books and comforters. Oops. Don't worry -- we won't let her do that at your house.

We love watching her learn, grow and enjoy being this beautiful little human being, and hope that you are, too, whether that's in person or in cyberspace or both.

Movies - 16 Months

Gia shows off her baby sign language in the bath

Gia plays with water in the bath

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=f8dee123-a088-4f17-87a6-f79f62b7236a" target="_new" title="Gia plays with water in the bath">Video: Gia plays with water in the bath</a>

Where is your nose?

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=eab0df47-75f1-4e2e-b9b8-7dbfe25e57ad" target="_new" title="Where is your nose?">Video: Where is your nose?</a>

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Crib ...

Tonight before bed, Gia was more distracted than usual. Instead of pointing to her books or to the door or making some other indication that she'd prefer not to go to bed, she signed these words to tell us what she had in mind:

Food - Bird - Outside - Shoes - Door.

Translation: "I want to feed the birds outside. Get my shoes on and let's go!"

She repeated this multiple times, just in case we didn't understand and were replying, "No, honey, we'll do that in the morning" to something else. Thanks to Gia TV (aka the video monitor), we know that she is now sound asleep and adorable face up.

Gia's words

Gia loves to communicate. Some of you might remember that her first word was an enthusiastic "Hi!" ... she also says: Bye, Mom, Da, Dog, Ball, Belt, Beh ("baby"), Boh ("boy") Hat, Hot, Uh-uh, Uh-oh and Nana (actually meaning "banana," and accompanied by a dance). I think I'm forgetting one or two more. Now she's also excited to sign words: Yes (infrequent!), No, More, Eat/hungry, Apple, Milk, Cracker, Up, Bath, Shoe, Cat, Bunny, Bird, Elephant, Squirrel (her latest fave), Book, and Bye. Naturally, she's always pointing to what she wants, and I suppose that's sign language, too. Of course, her receptive language is much broader than her expressive language, and it's amazing to see how much she understands. Like all of us, she's thrilled to speak and be understood.

Photos - 15 Months

Gia kisses a boy!

Well, it happened. At just 16 months, my little girl hugged and kissed a boy! His name is Rafa, and he’s a really adorable, affectionate, expressive, smart and playful boy, about 3 weeks younger than she. We met Rafa and his mom Allison at a Gymboree class about a month ago, and he was the one she liked. Gia tends to be interested in looking at all kids, but is quite particular about whom she wants to play with.

I like Allison and Rafa a lot, too ... she's kind and generous, we are very compatible in our beliefs and behaviors, and Gia and I feel very at home with them. The four of us had a playdate at the park a couple of weeks ago. And yesterday, we had a joyful 3-hour playdate at their house. The two kids engaged in some remarkably graceful parallel play, as well as direct play with each other and the mammas.

We were all playing with a plushy stuffed soccer ball in the wide, sunlit hallway ... Gia got in my lap to give me a hug and kiss, and then Rafa (who’d been coming to sit in my lap and hug me on and off) saw this and came into my lap, too. They turned to each other and ... kissed. And hugged.

Adorable.

She said "bye" to him all the way home and AT home about 20 minutes after we left, until she fell asleep.

Courageous Gia

Gia recently rediscovered a bunny puppet that comes out of a black hat. See below.



It may not be clear from the picture but it is not one of those really "cute" bunny animals. Well, Gia is terrified of it. She saw it today and pointed at it. So, I brought it to her. She immediately started frowning and shaking her head side-to-side until I took it away (not to be confused with when she gets really excited and vigorously shakes her head from side-to-side). To my surprise, after I put it away she started pointing at it again. So I brought it back to her and sure enough she frowned, backed away and shook her head. I thought that was curious but put it away and we went on playing in another room.

Several hours later, Gia did the same thing with Amy. It seemed that she was really intent on overcoming her fear of the bunny. So we brought it out and put it down several feet in front of her. She held on to us but kept looking at the bunny. Eventually, she pointed at it again so we brought it a little closer. Then I went over and pet its ears, and hugged it (trying to show her the bunny was friendly). This continued for quite awhile until she could have the bunny right next to her. Granted she still didn’t want to touch it but she would pick it up by the hat and move it.



We are so proud of how courageous she is. I would like to say that we modeled overcoming our fears to her but there really haven’t been many occasions in her short life. I guess that is just who she is. Pretty amazing…

Movie - Gia and Daddy Tango

Photos - 14 months