Olivia: 12 months

In the past week, Olivia has surprised us with new development almost daily.

She points.
On her birthday, she started pointing with her cute little index finger. She points at the pictures in her books and 'talks' to me about them. While looking out of the window, she points at the road when I talk to her about cars.

She said 'bird'.
During our vacation last week, I noticed how much time she spent looking at birds and blabbering about them. The night we got back, I gave her a stack of books (which she missed dearly, judging from her reaction) while I was relaxing in bed with her. She started flipping through them eagerly. Then, she stared at a page of The Very Busy Spider and uttered 'bird' (even though it was a picture of the duck!).

This may not be her first word ('mama' is) but I have a feeling, very soon, we can expect a word spurt from her. Super cute.

Understanding instructions
She understands when I ask her 'where is the duck?' or 'show mama the duck'. She will look for the page in The Very Busy Spider book that has the illustration of the duck.

She does the same when I ask for the 'little cloud' (from the Little Cloud) and 'the red balloon' (from the Goodnight Moon).

Even if I lay a few books in front of her, she will seek out the right book, flip to the correct page. Then point at the picture that I have asked her to find and look straight into my eyes with a knowing smile!!

I must admit it gets me soooooo excited whenever she does that!! :) In fact, I realize there are many more instructions that she seems to understand.

Steps
She took 5 wobbly steps on her own today. I am not sure if I would consider this as walking yet, but she has certainly shown great improvement in balance and lower body strength and is definitely taking more steps than 2 weeks ago.

Just a week ago, during the vacation, she would make 2-3 quick steps across her playpen and collapsed with a gigantic smile.

Problem-solving
Just yesterday, she was exploring in the living room area which I had set up with suitable toys. There were obstacles which I included on purpose to prevent her from entering the 'forbidden' zone. More than once, she removed obstacles so she could advance to the area she had set her eyes on.

Once, she tried stepping into a box which was stuffed with toys, in order to access the area behind the box. Realizing how little space there was for her little foot, she brought her foot out, regained balance before removing the toys one by one, then dragged the box out. That gave her space to advance to where she wanted to go. Unluckily for her, her amused mum never took my eyes off her. She wasn't successful beyond this point. Haha. But I am so proud of her!

Every achievement and milestone is still worth celebrating, even though I have seen them before in her siblings. My little dolly deserves as much attention and love and we must cheer her along as enthusiastically as we did for her brothers.