A couple weeks ago we went up to Iowa for Georgia's cousin's 1 year birthday party and left Georgia with her grandparents for 3 days until we went back up for Thanksgiving. Since she loves being around people, she did great and they said the only time she cried was when she smashed her fingers in a drawer. Above is a picture of all the cousins. Georgia is 15 mo, Luke is 11 mo, Derby is 12 mo and Kiefer is 5 mo (yes, 4 grandbabies in 10 months) and then Jack is 2 1/2 and Benny is 5. I can't imagine what this picture will look like in a few more years when ALL of Ben's siblings have kids and we all have more than just 1.

Georgia got to know all of her aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins better and even identifies them in pictures now. She is repeatedly pointing to and saying "pa pa" (grandpa) when she looks at her pictures and knows who Kiefer is but says "Kee or Tee" for his name.

She is now on her third ear infection in the past 2 months and on antibiotics AGAIN. Ben asked about doing tubes but the pediatrician said they usually wait until they are 2 because of teething. I wasn't there so I didn't quite understand what the problem was but I guess it's better to wait. The problem is that every time Georgia gets a cold, it turns into an ear infection. Because she had reactions to 2 other antibiotics, we keep putting her on Cefdinir but we're concerned that she's going to get immune to it b/c she's on it so frequently. If she gets another ear infection within a couple months, the pediatrician is going to check with an ENT to see what we should do.



Georgia likes putting things on her head -- daddy's hats usually but any material will do. She also has started walking around in daddy's shoes. She LOVES shoes. Always has. Even when she was little she would always check out everyone's shoes. It's no surprise that this was one of her first and favorite words and says it clear as a bell. She's still averaging 1 new word a day. Most of her words don't get pronounced with the ending consonate ("mou" for mouth) and she has troubles with "L"s and "R"s but she uses her words accurately and correctly identifies things. This week she has started doing her animal sounds whenever she sees the animal, not just when we ask her what something says. So she'll walk in the livingroom, see her animal puzzle or book or an animal on TV and immitate what she's seeing. It's turned into a game for Ben and me, kind of like I Spy, b/c out of nowhere Georgia will throw her arm in the air and do an elephant. Then we have to find where she saw an elephant.

We're starting to run out of animal sounds to teach Georgia. We're still working on pig, frog, bird and mouse but all the other animals in her books either don't make sounds or we don't know how to do them. Ben doesn't think it's fun for animals to not have a sound to immitate so he's started making some up and teaching them to Georgia. At the end of this video you'll see what a turtle says, in case you had always wondered what a turtle says. I love the expression on her face. It's like she's not sure that that's really what a turtle says.

New words and tricks since the last post: eat (and signing "eat"), drink, please, done (& signs "done"), deer, pink, hot, ball, clock, tick-tock. Animals sounds: Goat - "baa", horse - "neigh", snake - "ssss", bee - "ssss" (she doesn't get the bzzz quite right yet), bear - "grrr", fish - sucks her cheeks in, chicken - "b0ck bock". Any time she sees a coffee mug, fireplace, sees us blowing on food, etc, she announces "HOT, HOT, HOT". When we ask her where something is, she points to it and says "right there". Due to all of her colds, she has learned to blow her nose and even occasionally will grab a tissue and blow her nose all on her own. It's a pretty funny site to see a 15 month old walk around with a tissue and wipe her nose when it runs and go on about her playing as if it's no big deal. Sometimes I'm just amazed with how quickly she's growing up. This Sunday we went to my parent's church and when all the kids went to the front for the Children's Moment, Georgia stood in the aisle and looked at them, not quite sure if she should go too. A girl across the aisle saw this and came over and asked Georgia if she wanted to go up there with her...and she did. She sat through the whole story and enjoyed being up there with the kids even though she didn't know them.

Ben and Georgia are practicing for the Father - Daughter trapeze. Circ du Solei, here we come.