Buh-bye

Alli's new favorite thing to say is "buh-bye". Well, mostly it's "HI!" these days, but "buh-bye" is a close second. She used to just say it as we were leaving the house in the morning (directed towards the dog, of all things), but now she says it all the time. Each day I pick her up from daycare, I scoop her up in my arms and she turns to face her fellow classmates and says "buh-bye" while waving her hand. She then follows this up by blowing them a kiss which is accompanied by a big "muah!" She'll say it over and over as we're walking out the door - just to make sure everyone knows she got to leave before they did.

She does this same thing when we put her down to bed at night. We'll lie her down and before we can get out the door, she's sitting up saying "buh-bye" and blowing us kisses. It's quite possibly the cutest thing in the world. The only problem is that she continues to do this even after we've left the room - which means we're stuck walking down the hallway replying back to her, "Byeeee!" I told Mommy B that we have to stop responding to her once we leave otherwise she'll just keep saying it.

Just in the last few days, she's taken this new favorite word to the next level. She can now couple it with things or people to form a phrase. Now when I pull her out of the bath tub to get dried off, she says "Bye Pooh!" to her waterproof Pooh Bear that Aunt Bacon sent her last week. When we leave the house in the morning, she says "Bye Mama!" - even though her "mama" sounds mixed with "mommy" when she says it. Either way, it's still pretty cute.

These are just a few examples, but it's amazing to see her put things together like that. She's such a smarty-pants thanks to her wonderful school - and hopefully some good genes. She can form quite a few other words but when she can't she babbles non-stop anyway. Many times while she's playing by herself she'll open a book and just babble away as if she was reading it to herself. These days, she clearly knows what she wants and will let us know when she wants it. The best part is that now she's starting to use words to tell us what it is instead of just crying or whining. She still cries and whines plenty, but it's amazing to hear actual words come out of her mouth - and to know that she's starting to understand what they mean.