The Little Cow Who Didn't Moo

This Sunday was the Fall Festival at church. We took this chance to dress Meredith in her Halloween costume (and since we think trick-or-treating with her would be too obvious of a candy grab on our part, this was her one chance to wear it!).

Several people asked Meredith if she could "moo". She answered with silence. Not even a "buh". But she was so cute that no one cared.

I thought I'd post a few pictures - here she is looking at the animals at the petting zoo (kids could actually go in, but they were starting to pack up by the time we got to that area so we just looked from the fence).

Here is our little calf checking out another little calf:


Such a big girl!


Excited to pet the sheep!

How cute is that little tail?

Meredith also now holds the title for Diaper Dash champion! There were three crawlers in the competition, which involved crawling across a large blanket from Mommy to Daddy. Though Meredith can crawl fast, she decided not to. She meandered slowly over to Rob, turned sideways a few times, and general cracked us all up. Lucky for her, the other two kids decided that they did not want to crawl at all :) The prize was three raffle tickets - unfortunately, she didn't win the raffle, but I do have those ticket stubs for the scrapbook! Here she is, in all her glory, crawling toward Daddy:


Hope you all have a great Halloween!

A few "words" (?)

Our pediatrician asked us if Meredith calls us mama and dada yet. We told her she says those words, but not in reference to us (or anything in particular). She definitely knows what they mean though - if we say them to her, like "Where's Daddy?", she usually looks at the right person.

However, we have made more progress with a few other words. None of these are totally consistent, but here's what we've got:

First, she pretty consistently refers to her toy ducks as "gah". We say "duck, duck, duck" and she clearly thinks she is repeating after us when she says "gah". She now calls it that even without our prompting.

Second, she loves looking at pictures (we have a constant slideshow on the screensaver on our coffee-table laptop) and she sees photos of her Grandma and Grandpa regularly because of some photos on our computer from when they visited. She definitely recognizes them, but hadn't called them anything. Today, though, it seems she is making a connection and calling them either "bama" or "babba" or something in between. Very cute!

Finally, my personal favorite new word is "boomboom". It means balloon. Rob has been telling me this for a while but I didn't believe it was true, because she also said it sometimes when no balloon was in sight. But as we sit here watching the slideshow with her, when she sees a picture with a balloon (which was her first favorite toy after coming home, thanks to Auntie Burcin!) she is as clear as day: "boomboom, boomboom". Adorable!

Our efforts for word # 4 have been futile so far. The goal is "moo". Meredith is going to be a cow for Halloween (it was a cute costume at the Weecycle baby thrift store that fits her perfectly). We will post pictures when the time comes. It is my great hope that by the time of our church's fall festival (Oct 26), when the costume makes its debut, she will be able to say "moo". Here is how the training is going:

Me: Meredith, this is your cow (holding small plastic toy cow). What does the cow say? Mooooo! Moooooo!

Meredith: (silence)

Me: Mooooooo! Moooooo! The cow says Moooooo. Moooooo! What does the cow say?

Meredith: Buh.

Other training sessions involve a large stuffed cow and a picture of a cow in a book she likes. All of them consistently result in "buh". So we may just have the first cow known for saying "buh" instead of "moo".

(Note: I've decided to try to post a bit more often by allowing myself the occasional post without photos - hope everyone enjoys the stories too...)