Maya - Talking & Clapping

Maya is adding words to her vocabulary daily and I love it! Not only does she have her list of words that she will speak on a regular basis, but she's getting more comfortable just repeating whatever she hears. This was a conversation that I had with her recently -

I had just gotten home from the grocery store and she wanted to be held. I had to use the bathroom really bad but she didn't want me to put her down. As I'm running to the bathroom holding her...
Me: "Mommy has to pee."
Maya: "Pee!"
Me: "Yep, Mommy has to go now"
Maya: "Now!"
Me: Smiling ear to ear "I love you Maya"
Maya: Grins at me and dives in and plants a big wet one on my lips!

Some of the other words she's saying: Ma/Mama/Mommy, Da/Daddy, Peekaboo, Pizza, Out, Shoes, Nenna (for Makenna), Maryn, Fishy, Sippy, Juice, Ready Set Go, Bye-Bye, Cheese (when she sees the camera!), Teddy, Duckie, Night Night, Bean, Ball, Peepie, No, Uh-Oh, Ow, Blueberries, All Done, Kaela (Mykaela our baby-sitter), Thank You, Welcome, Up, Book, Puppy, Kitty, ABC, and she can count various fragments from 1 - 10. And one of my favorites... she says "E-I-E-I-O" in a sing-songy voice any time she sees her Old MacDonald book :) I'm sure there are others that I'm missing, but this is just a general list for my memory.

One of Maya's other big developments over the past month is clapping. I'm sure that sounds odd and it should be. For most kids, clapping comes much earlier than this. I believe it's typically around 8 - 10 months for most kids. I mentioned to the doctor at her 12 month appointment that she had never clapped (despite me working with her on it and her being shown numerous times) and after realizing that she was using both of her hands for other functions, she decided not to worry about it too much. She told me just to monitor it. Months passed and she still wasn't clapping by her 15 month appointment, though I watched closely and she was using her hands for everything else (including already able to feed herself with utensils). So I really wasn't all that worried. Josh kept saying she just hadn't had anything worth clapping for yet and I guess he was right. When she was around 16 months old the girls were helping me clean and I got out the Swiffer dusters. Maya had never seen them before and went nuts! She thought they were huge cotton balls (I believe I mentioned on here before about her obsession with cotton balls)... something finally worth clapping for!!! I couldn't believe it! I worked so hard with her and she finally clapped for the Swiffer Duster! Hilarious. Well she must have stored it all up because later that night she was watching Wheel of Fortune with Josh and would clap for the contestants on the show as well :) So sweet! Now she's doing it on a regular basis! Just goes to show that kids do things at their own pace.