Times Are Changing

Can you believe it's already September? The weather has been perfect the last few days... crisp, cool, clear skies. It has me so excited for Fall. It's strange to think this will be our last Fall in Philadelphia.

Dan got back from San Francisco this week. He had a great time, but came back exhausted from so many long days. We are so glad to have him back, home just isn't the same without him. We are anxiously waiting to hear what our next adventure will be, and where the future will take us.

Oakley is now a one nap little girl. This is a big change. It makes it much easier to go places during the day since we don't have to worry about getting back until after lunch. But, it means much more of my day is spent planning activities for all that awake time, and much less is spent getting things done.

For the longest time, Oakley showed no interest in the sign language I was trying to teach her. She would get mad when I would try to help her make the motions with her hands. So, I had kind of given up on the idea. Until recently. She started screaming at the top of her lungs anytime she wanted anything, and I figured it was time to revisit signing. She was desperately in need of a way to communicate. Uh-oh, mama and dada just weren't cutting it. Who knows if it was her age, or the junk food I used to motivate her, but it worked! She now signs "up", "more" and "please", which covers what she wants to communicate for now. We're working on adding more words to her vocabulary. If she ever starts to scream, I just ask her, "what do you want?" or "what do you say?" and she will use her signing. The more practice she gets, however, the more she is starting to use signing instead of screaming. Needless to say, all three of us are much happier now.



Today, I was so proud of her. She put "more" and "please" together to make "more, please". And she did it all on her own, without me prompting her at all! She must have really wanted that potato chip.

She hasn't gotten "all done" yet, so she just uses "up" to let me know she wants go get out of her high-chair.