books, finally

Right now Penelope is awake for some reason. She woke up crying about an hour ago and we tried everything, but then I realized it sounded like a hunger cry. We took her into the livingroom & gave her a bowl of food, but that only made her more hysterical, even though she was signing "eat", so I took her into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "EAT!" she exclaimed. We hunted for just the right thing and finally found it in a box of graham crackers. Now she's winding down and watching Little Bear.
The other day I went to the thrift store & picked up more "photo" type books for Penny -- some of them are lift the flap books, some of them have animals and sounds, one is an I SPY board book, and one is a book with Barney & some older kids showing them IDing different body parts. In the past, Pen hasn't been that receptive to being read to, but she's forming a lot of positive associations with these books, especially the Barney one since we read that one standing up & it requires movement. (PS she has no idea who Barney is!)
Today she was receptive to sitting with me on the couch and being read to, and a lot of today's language report stems from that. So I'm going to type the book and the resulting language action out here.
From the I Spy Book:
imitative approximation of the word "Squirrel"
pointing when asked to point to the frog

From the My Favorite Book of Animals:
spontaneous approximation labeling of the word "elephant ("ele!")
imitative approximation of the "naa-aa-aaa" (goat) sound. ("aa-aa-aa")
imitative "roar" sound
imitative "woof" sound
spontaneous labeling of the dog
imitative approximation of "meow" ("ow")
spontaneous labeling of the cat

Barney book:
imitative IDs: ears, head, eyes, arms (waving them), feet (marching them), tummy, nose, toes

She also picked up dad's pen and newspaper today (he loves the crosswords) and started scribbling on her own!

signs she used spontaneously today:
help, more, eat, passy
signs she used imitatively today:
cracker

she spontaneously made a hissing sound (while making a snake with her arms?)
and a car sound "vroom" while playing with a bus

One of the most impressive things about today was that she spontaneously signed more and eat, and we asked her "wanna eat, baby?" she nodded her head "yes". She has nodded for about a week now but this was the first time she's used the gesture functionally!

she clapped her hands several times today, both along with us and when she was proud of herself for something!
I feel like clapping myself, we are seeing such exponential progress from today!