Interesting

I get a weekly email from Northside Hospital, customized to Kaylee's age. Here is a blurb from this week's:

Good to know! Most 11-month-olds understand only a handful of simple words, but can understand more than 100 words by the age of 14 months.

That got me wondering how many words Kaylee knows, as I would have guessed it was more than "a handful." So I started listing them and came up with about 60, and I'm sure I am forgetting some, as I keep thinking of more. I would say that's more than a handful! She is only able to sign a handful of words, but picks up new signs very quickly now. She can sign more, all done, milk, down, please, help and no (maybe more?). And things that aren't necessarily signs, but she does when asked are give kisses, hug, clap, wave, dance, shake things, hold things (or give to us when we say "can I hold it?"), brush hair (her hair looks great afterwards, hah), and throw both arms up for "so big!" (as in, "how big are you?"). Plus there are lots of words and phrases she responds to, such as the names of her toys (castle, piano, camera, etc) or book (read a book, turn the page, push the button), etc. So I'm thinking maybe she's smarter than the average bear? I'll have to reevaluate the list at 14 months and see how many new things she knows!

Also, she has gone from 0 to 60 with the walking! Friday she wouldn't take more than a few steps, now she just wants to walk everywhere! She is still crawling a lot, but will pull herself up and walk across the room no problem, I even had her follow me today and she did a U-turn without falling. She does occasionally lose balance, but most of the time corrects for it and keeps going without falling. And a few times now she's stood up on her own from the floor without having to pull up; I think she is just tired of the red knees and ready to be a full-fledged biped.