Memorial Day Baby Update

Yet another drive-by update -- here's some stuff I wrote down on scraps of paper all over the place: 

Chatty Cathy

This baby loves the phone, I tell you what. She just about lost her mind from wanting to take over my phone when I was talking to my mom the other day -- the problem is, when you give her  a real phone, she starts pushing buttons, and you end up with your directory deleted and a conference call underway with the Prime Minister of Paraguay. But with a fake one, she's hilarious, babbling away, texting, occasionally going "No. Bye-bye." with a very convincing finality. She's even using her foot as a phone when she's on the changing table.

Solo yogurt eating

Yogurt, her favorite thing in the world, has been the gateway food for using the spoon herself -- she won't let us feed her stuff with a spoon anymore, and I finally found a brand that is thick enough to stick to the spoon (Stonyfield "OIKOS" Greek-style organic, at $2 each), so that's all she wants all day and all night. Except Goldfish crackers. I mean, her palate is pretty broad, for a toddler (kiwi, pasta w/garlic powder, all kinds of cheese, melon, peas, bites of whatever we're eating, etc.), but yogurt ("eeguh") and goldfish ("doti", or "gacka") are the two real power-hitters. 

More Yankees

The other day, R. had the Yankees game on, and she pauses on one of her high-speed treks through the living room to watch for a second. She says, "BALL!" and then a second later, "Ankeeeesh!" That's our girl!

Daddy's birthday

We were down in Santa Cruz over R.'s birthday, for one last Sauce before our friends K&K and baby Sky took off on their move back to the Midwest -- so even though Sauce is always fun, that day was kind of a bummer. But today Annika helped me make a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate glaze for Daddy, so we're making up for it. And we had wonderful weather down south -- 86 and sunny -- so she got to go swimming both days. She LOVED it, and we're looking forward to getting some more pool time this summer.

Recording technology

This kid is repeating just about everything these days -- words, sounds, gestures, whatever. For instance, Friday she and I were on our way home from Target and got stuck at a light. I was waiting to turn left, and the blinker was clicking -- and she started clicking her tongue along with it! Hilarious!

Fun with the footstool

At Target, I bought a little plastic footstool (part of the gear I got as very early prep for toilet training), and it is the Best Thing Ever, this week. She carries it everywhere, gives it kisses, sits on it with a book (I got video and photo of that), stands on it -- who knew it would be so entertaining!

New concepts

--both

--later, after, and then

--Mommy's, Daddy's, baby's, whose (stuff)

--her name (when you ask her -- she used to only repeat it when you said it)

--counting (pretty much only "one, two, one, two" right now, but she's getting the idea)

--"the end" (she says it when a book's done, or when she's done with it)

Words! 

--room

--shirt

--pants

--water

--watch

--sit down

--sunglasses

--heart, guitar, peace! (these are the three symbols on her Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame T-Shirt that Grandma & Grandpa gave her)

[there are more, but I can't keep up with them all ... this is a sample!]

Springtime for baby!

What's new? Lots! Read on ...

Easter with the Cousins
We made the trek down to Sunnyvale so Annika could have her first Easter-egg hunt with her cousins. She caught on to the idea really quickly, and though she didn't seem to care about the candy (is this really my kid??), she had an awesome time and came back with several drawings by cousin A., a stuffed sheep (lamb?) that she absolutely loves, and a little bouncy rubber ball that is the Best. Thing. She's Ever Seen.

Tha Yankees Win! ThaaaaaaaaYANKEES win!
R. had the (hapless, lost-looking) Yanks on TV, and Annika pointed to the screen and said "ball!" as is her wont. Yeah, said R., that's the Yankees. She stood there a second, then went to her pile of books and pulled out the one about the Yankees & held it up. (We knew Grandpa would be proud!)

Yeah, Yup, OK
She's known these words for awhile, but lately it is just hilarious how she says & uses them. For example, just now, she dumped all of her crayons on the floor. I said, "You need to pick those up now." And she said, very sweetly, "Yeah, OK." and picked them up! Maybe you have to hear it to believe it, but it is the cutest thing ever.

Letters
She's got damn near all of the letters now, quite a few of them in both lowercase and uppercase. I had her out of the stroller to help me drop some letters through the mail slot in the post office, and she wanted to explore a bit, so I let her. She went straight over to the FedEx drop-off and started calling out the letters to me -- not in order, but all correctly. Just about blew my mind.

WORDS!
cereal
spoon
wet
cold
dry
helicopter
lion
cloud
chair
Darth Vader ("bitu")
ring
finger
circle
bib
wipes
whale
bowl
plate
hairbrush
reach
shirt
pants
water
watch
white
black
pacifier ("pado")

Multi-word phrases
sit down (she'll say that either to direct you to do it, or to announce she's about to)
OK, Daddy
OK, Mama
I love you