"Talk!"

By MAGGIE WANG

Sedona is just talking up a storm these days. There are times when she'll pull herself up into our laps, make eye contact and say, "Talk!" So we'll run through the day, having a full-blown conversation with her. Every day Kevin and I look at each other in amazement at how much of a person she has become -- at less than 2 years old!

• Just last week, Kevin was tickling Sedona's feet in the car, and she quite casually said, "Don't tickle me." We had never used this sentence before; she just put it together herself. It was really amusing, and she brought it out on her own again a few days later with A-Gong and A-Ma Ding.
• When Maven is crying, Sedona is the first to go give her a kiss and say, "Don't cry, Maven."
• When Sedona is looking for someone, she adorably runs around the house and calls out the person's name. For example, "Maven! WHERE ARE YOU, Maven?"
• Sedona absorbs so much. Lately she is using words that we rarely use. Just today she introduced "sour" while commenting on some food.
• She can pretty fully sing her A-B-C's, "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star," "Happy Birthday," "Elmo's Song" (or "A-Ma's Song," as Kevin has turned it into, much to Sedona's delight) and lately loves "Skip to My Lou, My Darling."
• She can count, sort of. She has gotten past her tendency earlier this month to step out of convention and say: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Maven, 8, 9 ..." But she still tops out at the same point with "... 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 13 ..."

Here are a couple quick photos ...

Here is Sedona happily going through one of the old Ding family photo albums by herself. We've had them out recently to find some pictures of Kevin's cousin, Joseph Wu, for his farewell party as Taiwan's ambassador to the U.S. Kevin was flabbergasted when he saw some photos from when little Kevin was 6 years old ... and A-Gong and A-Ma Ding were as old as Kevin is now: 37!

By the way, Sedona's outfit shown above is from Sprout Kids Clothing -- and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. My friend Rosa, who used to work for Jennifer Garner's agent, gave us some goodies that were initially meant for Violet Affleck. Celebrities get a lot of free stuff; they pass it along to their agents; and the agents pass the stuff along to us little people. (Thanks, Rosa!) The Sprout clothes are really cool and made from bamboo ... which makes them antibacterial, biodegradable and actually amazingly soft.

Sedona is so fascinating at this age that I'm thrilled to know that we can go through it all over again with Maven. So far Maven has been such a laid-back child. She has already started to wean herself off sucking her fingers to calm herself and is going to bed awake but without any crying, sucking or anything. She is independent and really sweet -- always smiling. We are so fortunate to have such a sweet baby.