Maya's latest achievement is one of her most charming to date: repeating our most-used expressions and phrases back to us. She's been saying a lot of "There you go!" and "See?" and "I know, I know" and "Yup!" The really fantastic thing is that she uses them correctly! She'll present me with one of her shoes, for instance, and say, "There you go!"
She also understands more of what we say than we realize. Yesterday Maya was pointing to Ndugu and shouting, "Ndugu! Ndugu!" and just to make (what he thought would be one-sided) conversation, Seth goes, "Right. And what's our other cat's name?" And Maya answers, "Toonces," and Seth nearly fell over, he was so floored. (Although, she kind of compresses the double-o vowel sound, so it sounds more like "Tnces.")
She also has started using the word "home" to announce where we are when we arrive back to the apartment after an outing, and she understands the concepts of two items: Interestingly, she'll point to two items in succession and say, "two, one," instead of "one, two." I'm pretty sure this is my fault, because she first became aware of numbers when I started doing "three, two, one, blastoff!" in the mornings when taking her down from the diaper-changing table. Oh well. The teachers at school can clean up my mess later on down the road.
:-)

Maya turns 19 months old in a few days! I can't believe how close she's getting to two. Two! I remember when the one-year mark seemed far, far away.
Maya is delightful these days (when she's not throwing a tantrum or whining). She loves nothing more than to help Mommy or Dada with a chore or a task. All we have to say is, "Maya, could you please help us with something?" and she comes running. Her favorite tasks are helping to unload the dishwasher, helping load/unload the clothes washer and dryer, throwing things in the trash, and putting groceries away on the (lower) shelves of the refrigerator.
We are pleased that finally, finally her face rash is starting to clear, thanks to some new cream prescribed by a dermatologist. However, we noticed today that she woke up with two unrelated-looking, new, strange little blemishes that look like zits: one on her cheek, and one on her hand. We'll watch them to see what happens.
Maya is still spending what seems like the majority of her day singing. A few times this week, when I was singing "Edelweiss" to her before bed, she chimed in and sang a few words with me. I was thrilled and so proud! One of my not-so-secret agendas is to instill in Maya a love of "The Sound of Music" so that we can enjoy both the film and the soundtrack together for the rest of our lives and drive Seth crazy! Next summer I plan to bring Maya with me to the Hollywood Bowl's Sound of Music sing-a-long and costume parade.
Oh! That reminds me: Today at Target we found two potential Halloween costumes for Maya. We bought both and will return whichever one fits the worst. We found a fairy costume and a cheerleader costume. (The latter comes with pom-poms.)
Maya has learned her possessives: She'll point to something, like a coffee mug, and say "mama's." She'll point to neighbor Leilani's stroller and say "baby's." She can join in when we count slowly to ten, and she knows a portion of the ABC song (the "L-M-N-O-P" part).
Maya's sense of humor is in full bloom. She'll often put her fork on her head during dinner and announce, "Hat!" She looooooves to be tickled (unlike her mom) and to squeeze my nose or Seth's to hear us say "Honk!" She also thinks it's great fun to "fool" us by saying "Night night!" and curling up on the floor to fake sleep. That Maya. What a kidder.