I haven't been keeping up very well the last few months. First it was summer, and we were doing all the summer things. She loved the beach, just loves the sand and water. We spent a few afternoons out at Blue Lake, where they have a fountain park and a sandy beach and the lake. Then we got sick with Covid at the end of September, and then a sequence of other viruses, as she was trying to go to daycare. We were basically sick all the fall, in fits and starts, and finally better in time for Christmas.

Today she said her first intelligible sentence: "I see a cat". We were playing with her little plastic animals, which I had scattered on the floor, and I asked her if she could find the a cat. Also today she said "Be careful, Vicky" and also "Be careful, Panda", which are legitimate sentences too.

On Christmas we were out at the farm and she really got chatty with mom, just telling her whole stories complete with a variety of hand gestures, completely unintelligible except for animal names and sounds, "cat", "dog", "owl", "meow meow", "woof woof", and "hoot hoot". I captured some of it on video, but didn't get the best parts. She talks a lot of indecipherable words; I suspect she's saying much more than we realize, we just can't figure it out.

Also around Christmas she did something surprisingly meticulous. She was sitting on my lap, at the computer, and she asked (with gestures) for this mug of pens that was too far away to reach. Then she took out each pen and pencil, one by one, took of the cap or pushed the clicker or whatever it took to activate it, scribbled with it a little bit on a notepad, and then lined it up on the desk (without putting the caps back on). She went through every single pen and pencil in this way. Then she started in the reverse direction, writing with each pen and putting it back in the mug. But after about three she got confused about which way she was going and mixed it all up.

Later, Vera recounted that Amber may have picked it up from her. She had a mug full of pens and she was checking which ones worked, taking each one out and writing with it, then putting it in a pile or throwing it away. So maybe Amber was imitating this behavior.