Rhyana Beckett Castillo Freeman

September 1998 - 18mo

• Spikey is extremely verbal. Quickly learned all the kids' names at the daycare. She talks in complete sentences. Said, "baba dripping, shirt wet, out" which means her bottle was leaking on her shirt ans got wet so she wanted to take it off. I was very impressed.
• She can tell you her name, except last night she said, "Spikey no, Rhyana"
• In bath she plays pretend, and pretends to drink the water and gives me some also.
• On the first day of daycare she walked to the window, gave a big sigh and said mommy working. She seemed to understand why I wasn't there. Her daycare teachers were flabbergasted.

August 1998 - London - 17 mo.

• We went window shopping on Saturday, looking for a new watch form me. We were looking in the windows and spike was in the stroller, so she couldn't see what we were looking at. All of a sudden she yells out from her stroller, "I want watch!" while she was holding her wrist. I not only didn't think she knew what we were shopping for about, but I had never showed her was a watch was or anything. It was unbelievable.
• When she finished eating her granola bar. She stood up from the chair took the wrapper and threw it away in the garbage can, all by herself, without my telling her or anything. Not only was it amazing that she was neat, but that she understood that the wrapper was garbage and where the garbage can were, amazed me.
  If she were 6 months to 1 year older, neither of these stories would be impressive. She is going to be a smart little cookie.

July 1998 - London

• Spikey, is the cutest ever. She is very outgoing and loves life and people. She loves to be outside waving to everyone in the street saying hi or bye (I think she is practicing to be in a parade). She shows her emotion much more than Morgan, giving hugs and kisses whenever she arrives or leaves somewhere. She also knows exactly what she wants and expresses her wishes very well with her limited (yet ever growing) vocabulary. I think Spikey will be very smart (maybe even smarter than Morgan). She has an incredible good memory and understanding of what goes on around her. She is not easily distracted or fooled. In the house, she is a pain because she must be watched continuously. She lives to take everything out of the drawers and cupboards. She is now tall enough to reach on the table so everything must be kept back about 6 inches. As we are eating dinner, all of a sudden a hand pokes over the edge and the fingers are wiggling in vain to reach for anything.
• Morgan earned some money working in the office for Marion. With his first ever earnings he bought something for his sister, a teletubby doll. Spikey loves her new doll, and carries it around everywhere, giving it hugs and kisses. She puts it to bed and puts a blanket over it then says shhhhhh. We must be quiet because the baby is sleeping.
• Even though Spikey is awfully cute she has become a pure terror. She can now climb on to the kitchen table and throw all on the floor. She climbs form the chair to the table, so I have been keeping the chairs away from the table to prevent the climb. She is not one to be easily deterred, so she pushes the chairs back in to place. She is very quick, and can climb up in just a couple of seconds, so if I don't pay attention, she is back up again. We now have to be careful to keep the table clear. Forget keeping plates or knives up there. We eat, and immediately clear the table or it will be done for us.
• She is not only physical but she is becoming very verbal. She is really into animals and animal sounds now. She says meow, moo, foow (instead of woof), cluck, quack. She goes nuts when she sees an animal on TV or in a park.
• Rhyana is currently going though a big daddy faze. She cuddles him all the time. Yesterday when we brought her into our bed for her first bottle, she cuddled with daddy and wouldn't let me put my head on his shoulder also. She kept pushing me away. Hurt my feeling a little, but I'm glad she wants daddy also.

June 1998 - 15mo.

• Off to London for the Summer - Since we have arrived we have been to several castles and quaint English villages. Richard's mother came with us on the plane and stayed for 2 weeks during which we had a wonderful time doing touristy stuff. On one weekend we hired a car and drove to Bath, saw the roman pump room and walk around the town. Then we went to Farleigh Hungerford Castle, which was very cool. It was almost in ruins so Morgan spent the time climbing around. Then we went to a quaint 13th century town called Lacock. The buildings were all made out of timber or stone. On the way home we stopped at Castle Combes, a twee little town , and had Sunday roast at the local pub. It was a great day of travel. We really enjoyed the British countryside. Nigel always laughs at the way we travel because we do so much in such a short period of time. He thinks we just arrive at the place, tick it off the list and jump back into the car. He is completely wrong, we take pictures and buy something at the gift shop before jumping back into the car.
• Last weekend, before Richard's mom left, we hired a car again and went on another road trip. This time we went to the Hastings area. Our first stop was at Bodium Castle, very picturesque with filled moat and all. Then we proceeded to Battle Abbey and learned all about the great battle between William and Harold. I now know more about that battle than I do about any of the American wars. Maybe I am turning Brit... After lunch we drove through Hastings (it looked like an interesting place and I'd like to return for a day) to Rye. By the time we got to twee Rye we were completely knackered so we briefly checked out the place and headed home. We originally had planned to have dinner there, but we didn't have the energy to wait for the restaurants to open. The had very nice places for tea, and we should have just had tea instead , but we were too tired to enjoy it.

May 1998 - 14mo.

• Spikey lives to go outside. When she sees us getting ready in the morning she quickly finds her shoes (her favorite word) and sits in front of the door. No one is going out without her. When Christopher comes over and she hears the door bell she jumps up from whatever she is doing and starts yelling. "Shoe, shoe" and looking for her shoes. She loves to go out and visit morgan's classroom in the morning.
  
• Has about 20 words in her vocabulary: mama, dada , brobro, wa (walk), wa (water), do (dog), du (duck), ri (rice), more, ball, book, shoe, side (outside), pop (bubbles), booby, Sam, hi, bye-bye, chee (cheese), no.
  
• Trip to Washington DC. Visited with John and Lara.
  
• Sings Happy Birthday. She has a music piano which plays about 8 different songs. Spike will go through them until she gets to Happy Birthday, then she sings with the music. When she sings it sounds like, Happy Bye-Bye...
  
• We visited Linda last weekend. Spikey alternated between being terrified and fascinated of Linda's dogs. If the dogs came near her she screamed in terror. But once they passed, then she would follow behind them with her little finger pointing at them saying, "dog, dog." But if the dogs would change direction and even look at her, then she would scream again. She kept getting braver and braver, but she never managed to pet them.
  
• Spikey is really into saying bye-bye. Whenever we go to the grocery store she waves to everyone down the aisle. You would think she was in a parade. The other day she was reading a book about ducks. On every page she would point to the duck, say the word duck, then wave and say bye-bye and turn the page. It was so cute.
  
• Rhyana is definitely dad's girl. She rather go with him than me. At dinner every night she stands in her highchair until we take her out, then she promptly goes over to daddy and sits on his lap while he is still eating. She then takes food off his plate and feeds him. It is very cute, but a bit of a pain. I have tried to get Richard to stop but he is so indulging.
  
• Spikey loves to give hugs and kisses. At the day care, she especially loves to give hugs and kisses to her friend Sam.She is very affectionate. Her kisses are open mouthed slobbers, but they are sweet anyway.

April 1998 - 13mo

• Tex and Shayla visit for 10 days. Spike is much more mobile than her cousin and takes advantage of her speed by hitting and pulling Shayla's hair. Shayla develops a force field around her self . If Spikey breaks the force field, regardless if she touches Shayla, Shayla cries. Nevertheless, it was wonderful having Tex and Shayla around. And the cousins did manage to play well together. It turns out that being with Spikey was very good for Shayla. When she returned home, she started walking and was much more assertive with her playmates. She learned quiet a bit from her cousin.
• Spikey has become mischievous. She loves to play chasing game with her brother. She runs away from him and over to my safety lap squealing in delight. The other day Spikey found a small bead on the floor. She picked it up and showed it to me. Before I could take it out of her hand she popped it in her mouth and ran off, laughing. When I caught her she popped it out of her mouth. She knew exactly what she was doing, teasing me.

March 1998 - 1yr

• First birthday
• has 6 teeth
• in addition to more, says brobro, wawa, mama, ball, book
• dances to music
• can get on and off her tricycle
• blows kisses when she leaves
  
• She is at the stage when a breeze knocks her over. When she is walking and comes across an adult she tilts her head back to make eye contact and give a big smile -then she loses her balance and falls on her tush. I guess her head is still the biggest part of her body and she hasn't learned to adjusted to any big shifts there yet.
• She also understandings everything that is spoken to her. Yesterday one of her toys went under the kitchen table. She is too tall to fit under so I told her to be careful with her head and crawl to get her toy. She got down on all fours and did it. I couldn't believe she understood what I was talking about.

February 1998 - 11mo

• Started walking
• Trip to Puerto Rico
• Got ears pierced
• can put peg in hole
• can do the hand movements to "itsy bitsy spider"
• climbs up 4 foot slide and slides down on tummy
• points at everything with her index finger

January 1998 - 10mo

• pick up phone and says hi
• claps for self when does something new
• can stand unsupported
• understands "feet first" to get down from somewhere
• top teeth came in (6 teeth in all)
• bit mommy nursing and drew blood
• trip to Chicago

December 1997 - 9mo

• Waves bye
• puts ball in shoot
• first tooth
• Started saying "more"

November 1997 - 8mo

• Cousin Shayla and Abi visit
• Can push cousin Shayla in the walker
• Learns "linda manito"
• First hair cut

October 1997 - 7mo

• finally could sit
• stands against things and cruises

September 1997 - 6mo

• started day care at Peabody Terrace (MWF 8:15-5:45)
• To discover things would crawl to them, pick them up, roll on her back, shake them, lick them and toss them aside, roll back over and crawl to the next thing. (Could not sit unsupported)

August 1997 - 5mo

• started crawling (5 1/2 mo)
• Started feeding herself cheerios
• went swimming in pool

July 1997 - 4mo

• Solid foods
• Dinner at the house of the American Embassador in London
• Became very proficient in her walker. Could move around the office at will and empty all the garbage cans.

June 1997 - 3mo

• could scooch of the changing mat
• First international trip to London
• Loved to stand so much that we bought her a walker that she used almost continuously in the office.

May 1997 - 2mo

• first airplane trip to NC to visit cousin Shayla

April 1997- 1mo

• Eat, sleep, poop, spit up.

March 5, 1997

• born in 3 hours

• Spent 3 days in NICU for observation because suffered from apnea (stopped breathing) twice within 24 hours after she was born. Turned out she was OK, just born too quickly so didn't have all the fluid out of her lungs.

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