Catch up on Ashley January 2009

SO.. I've been real bust with my newest so I added Ashley's posts from last year, well, really 2007, but it's still early so it seems like last year. Ashley will be 2 years old in March, the day before my twins turn 11. It makes for very easy birthday parties, can't beat parties in one shot:)
She has been walking around things for several months now, but doesn't quite have the courage to let go and cruise on her own. If she has your hands though it's all we can do to keep up with her as she practically runs around the house. She gets so excited!
We are starting to potty train her and yesterday she did her first poopy in the potty!!! Me being as sentimental as I am had to get several pictures for her scrapbook which my hubby thinks just isn't right, but it's monumental for her:) I am training her baby brother at the moment too who is 3 months old, so hopefulyy she will catch on even faster because she sees him use the potty. We'll see. I'm not gonna push her.
She has always done most of her gross motor skills ahead of time on the achondroplasia chart, so we were expecting her to walk between 16 & 18 months but she has proved us differently. She has had quite a growth in her cognitive and speaking skills the last few months, so it seems her brain is in that mode. I figure the more cognitive things she learns right now the more her brain will grow in this stage and help her in the future because those parts of her brain that control learning are being stimulted. So therefor, we've decided she will walk on her own. It is definitely going to happen eventually, so we figure why not keep harboring her desire for talking and learning sign language and let that develop at it's own pace.
It seems children go in stages between physical and mental learning, so I'm sure we'll know when she switches, and in the meantime, we'r enjoying learning our new words and signs. She has excellent communication skills and a vocabulary of over 20 words right now, so we're pretty happy with that.