It is such a joy to hear Keana’s little voice! From the moment she opens her eyes in the morning to the moment she closes them to sleep, she is talkin’, askin’ questions, singin’, and makin’ noises. We absolutely love it. Sometimes we just lie awake in bed in the morning and listen to her talk and sing to her stuffed animals in her crib. The last couple of weeks she’s really been memorizing lyrics to her favorite songs. She’ll ask, “Mama sing it?” or “Papa sing it?” and smile and dance—but always listen—until she gets a piece of it then sings along. So far she’s learned part of the Sesame St. theme “Sunny Days” and the Dragon Tales theme, and she continues to get better on her “ABCs” and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”. Another popular phrase has been “Try it?” when we tell her something won’t work. It really makes me stop and realize how important it is for her to try just about everything on her own and reminds me of how much I liked to figure things out for myself, especially when adults told me how it would or wouldn’t work. I swear Keana teaches us just as much as we teach her.

Last Saturday we went to Pt. Reyes Station for biscuits and gravy at the Pine Cone Diner then headed out to the beach. Sarah and I really have Santa Cruz in the veins because we figured we’d just go over to HWY1 and pull over whenever we saw a good beach, like we used to do when we lived in Santa Cruz. Well, needless to say, up north on HWY1 is not like HWY1 near Santa Cruz. Eventually we found Bolinas (yeah, we’d never heard of it either). It’s kind of like a distilled version of Santa Cruz. Not a ton of tourists and crazies, and a lot of real northern CA beach bums and surfers. We had to run through the ocean near this retaining wall to reach a small patch of sand, so you could say easy beach access there was not. Keana had been talking about the ocean since we mentioned it Friday night saying “Ocean—get in there?”, so Sarah was determined to get our Girl to the beach. Keana loved just standing in the ocean waiting for each wave and didn’t flinch once. In fact, we had to yank her out on a couple surprise waves so she didn’t get totally soaked. She didn’t even mind the sand, though she still thought it was “messy”.

I remember when I was growing up I talked all the time, and now as an adult Sarah would definitely say that my verbosity has remained strong, especially late at night or when she’s trying to sleep. I remember too how adults responded to me when I talked and how that made me feel, and I want to always be sure Keana feels that she’s being heard, that what she says is respected, and to try and have patience with her as she expresses her thoughts out loud. I think if we encourage her voice through listening, she’ll learn to verbalize her thoughts better and even become a better listener in the process.