Of course, the most obvious recent development is Tye's ability to walk. While walking itself is a major milestone, it also opens a child to a whole new world of learning opportunities at rapid-fire pace. When Tye moves about now, it's on two feet as she uses her hands to explore freely.
Tye has also expanded her functional vocabulary. In addition to mama and daddy (adapted from the original dada), she now says doggie, woof, uh-oh, Ziggy (our cat's name), eye(s), hi, and Woof Woof. Along with these new words has emerged categorization in the form of overgeneralization. Tye first learned doggie and would say "doggie" whenever we saw a dog on a walk or whenever she heard a dog bark (and then she would "woof" back). Now, all animals are doggies, from her stuffed moose to illustrations of elephants and hippos. But, only animals are doggies, proving Tye knows that doggies, moose, elephants, hippos, and a variety of other creatures are all animals. That they don't all say "woof" will come later. Along the same lines, as of right now, all body parts are labeled expressively as eyes (although Tye knows both eyes and nose receptively- in other words, she can accurately point to each upon request, even if she can't yet say the word nose).
Perhaps my favorite new development is Tye's fascination with stuffed animals and dolls. She loves to empty her bins of plush toys, pulling each one out separately and hugging it tightly before she tosses it aside to hug the next. This isn't just a hugging skill, though. Tye has formed special attachments to a few of her toys, like the plush Santa in her first walking video, a Beanie Baby puppy that looks like Mico, and a yellow and blue Swedish-looking moose.
Oh, and were you wondering earlier what Woof Woof might mean? It's the name bestowed upon Tye's absolute favorite stuffed animal, a blue corduroy dog that followed us home from Seattle- or perhaps more truthfully, was dragged to Chicago by a little bald girl with a new obsession.
