Words, Words, Words

I was going to list all the new words you've picked up, but the list would be too long and changes hourly! You basically pick up many of the words we say, and they're sounding more and more like English. It's as though an alian language is slowly morphing into English.

Is She a Banshee, or Just Posessed?

Banshee night with sleeping arrangements

tries saying everything after we do

says mommy and daddy like a game of Marco Polo

likes to lie against, sit on, and kick isbre, and tease her with food. squeals with glee when isbre chases her when she has food

is afraid of planes after the air show, but we're all pretending to be planes when they go overhead so we're hoping this goes away soon because we have a LOT of planes here

Ow! is her favorite word now. She points to a scratch on me or on her, or sometimes just a piece of dirt and says ow

Dad carries her on his shoulders and she loves it, expecially when he runs

she grins like mad when she runs down the sidewalk. i think she's been for her 1.5 years to run and jump and swing

swings on bars with her feet up

not sure about fountains

timeouts have begun with centered breathing

Hot! is another favorite word

Careful is a favorite sign, and she knows when to use it, even on cats

Likes to hang out with me and eat an apple

You've started to put two words (signs) together. You tell me that birds are eating or squirrels are eating. At first I thought you were just telling me you wanted to eat, like you always want to eat. But then you kept pointing at the bird feeder or the squirrel feeder. Wow, I finally got it.

Today was a pretty typical day. We all get up at 6:00 or 6:30 because you come into our room and wake us up, usually by crawling on us. I have my coffee and you have some of Dad's oatmeal and yogurt. Then we put the harness on Isbre and hook her to the cart Dad made (one of the most interesting looking contraptions on the road!) and walk Dad to work. You point out the planes in the sky and the play structures and the cars and bikes on the way in. You start out with your hat on but drop it into the cart pretty soon, and you've started taking off your sweater as well. I don't know if you get warm or are just tired of clothing - I think you'd go naked most of the day if you could.

We met two other Moms at Magnolia park where there are two play structures - one for little kids and one for bigger ones - and a fountain for kids to play in. You played on the two play structures, mostly by swinging on the bars. You're still learning to move out of the way when you have squated on the stairs and someone else wants to get past, so we're working on that. You spent an hour going up and down stairs and swinging on bars (often with your feet off the ground).

Then we came home and I gave you a bottle of milk in the rocking chair at about 11:30 and you fell asleep (and I did too for a few minutes). You slept for about an hour and then came to get me. (An hour isn't long enough, but you've started sleeping that little the last few days. It means you're really cranky in the afternoon and evening.) You tried to sit in Isbre's kennel with her and close the door on the two of you. I needed to keep pulling you out of the kennel and you won't listen or pay attention to anything else when you're with Isbre. It's like she's your older sister. You pester her to death, but love to be around her. And she treats you a lot like a younger sister. She barely puts up with you most of the time.

You had tortilla with melted cheese for lunch, and I tried putting you in a chair with a pillow on it and that worked well. It's about time to get you a booster seat.

We played with your crayons for awhile. You can draw on any paper not in books, so you've started to scribble on the paper, pointing out the horses and babies in the pictures.

I made brownies and let you lick the spoon and then you pestered the dog some more when she was licking out the bowl. Again, I caught you in her kennel, playing on the bowl with the spoon while Isbre, captive, watched, careful of the moving spoon.

We picked up your toys and then we went to meet Dad on his way back from work. You want down from the ergo pack when you see him, and you go running to him. It's very sweet, and then Dad carries you home except for the periods you want to walk. We stop at the sheep field and Dad picks two apples for you to give the two brown sheep in the field. They see us coming and come to the fence to greet us, and I don't know what we'll do when the apples are all gone and you still want to feed the sheep :-) Isbre goes crazy trying to herd the sheep and they totally ignore her because they have grown up with her barking at them and they know she's harmless. Isbre eats grass around the sheep to show she is one of them.

We got home and Dad and I worked on getting my worms to move from finished compost to new food sludge. You spent the time truly trying our patience by trying to get into the worm bin, trying to dig in the worm poop, flinging worm poop around on a stick, and screaming every time we wouldn't let you do one of those things (remember what I said about you being cranky with a short nap).

We had dinner and you tried all of it (rice, tuna fillet, corn and soy beans, and even spinach), but were rubbing your eyes with tiredness halfway through the meal. You had nectarine for desert, I put you in pajamas and after 5 minutes you asked for more to eat. I asked if you wanted milk, and you said yes. That's the sign that you're ready for bed. You got a little piece of brownie, then I fed you your bottle until you weren't interested any more. You make the tooth-brushing sign and we brush your teeth and you spit into the sink when we're done (you've been practicing spitting around the house this week - fortunately you don't have much saliva behind it). I read you two stories twice and tell you good night. You make sad noises for a few minutes until Dad goes in and tells you its time for sleep. Then you fall asleep. Creating the energy to do it all again tomorrow.

I Wanna Play Play Play

Sometimes I wonder how much you understand of what I say, even though I say it anyway. Sometimes I find out.

You were cranky/needy/cry-y all afternoon after your nap. Finally I decided what we needed was some time out of the house, so we would walk up to the play structure in the development near us (well, okay, I would walk and you would ride in the Ergo pack). I told you that we would go play, and you repeated 'play' in sign. Then I got interested in an on-line article about Jack Abramhoff for a few minutes. You cried and asked to go, and I said in a minute. Then you came back to me holding one of my shoes. It took me a minute to understand that you were telling me to put it on so we could get going. Then I took another look at you and saw that you had put on your sandals all by yourself and were REALLY ready to go. You understood not just what play was, but that we were going to leave the house and needed our shoes on. It made me laugh (and be impressed - it's the first time you've put your shoes on by yourself) and I scanned the rest of the article, put my shoes on and we left. It always surprises me when I see how much you know and understand after only 18 months on this planet.

We continued with our tradition of feeding the sheep across the street an apple each from the tree in their field on our way home. You LOVE this. Really LOVE this. You drop each apple through the fence and then watch as the sheep eat their little treasures. It still boggles my mind sometimes that we live so near sheep and cows, that herons fly into the fields and streams on our walk, that we often see ducks and nutria (like muskrats) and even saw a family of nutria yesterday (4 kids and mom and dad) with dad standing watch on a hill and the family near a small gully, and yet we live so close to stores and restaurants and Robert's work. I really enjoy that.

A Daddy Weekend

Robert asked me what I wanted to do for Labor Day weekend (3 days) and I told him I wanted 3 days at home to get things done that I couldn't do with interruptions every 5 minutes. So, he agreed to be the baby guy over the weekend. It was all good. You got used to your dad and got to spend some real long quality time with him, and I got a break from being the one always on call. I didn't get that much done, but I rested and played a lot. Dad made you a sandbox in the driveway out of a plastic half-wine-barrel and you played in there with your garden tools while he worked on projects in the garage. It was the perfect system (you even fell asleep for your nap in there once) except that the sides of the barrel are too high for you to get into on your own, so Dad had to put you in and take you out (many, many, many times).

On Monday night we compared notes on taking care of kids full time. We both agreed that it's exhausting in an odd way. It's not really physically exhausting or mentally exhausting, but kind of emotionally exhausting. And it's more so with both you and Isbre. You both want, or need, all the time. And there's only one source.

You are saying new words every day. Every day there will be an hour or two where you will copy everything we say, trying out all the words yourself. So far only a few words like hi and bye would be understandable to anyone but your parents, but it's coming. It's pretty funny to think that at 15 months you weren't saying anything and I was starting to worry. The pediatrician said if you weren't speaking at 18 months, we'd take you to a specialist for testing. And at 17 months, you decided it was time to talk.