Summertime baby

All the world's a drum.
For weeks and weeks, everything in the entire universe has been a drum, and everything from her hands to string cheese is a drumstick -- it was like Christmas morning when she came in the living room one day and saw the real (kid-sized) drumsticks R. got for her! She pronounces it "mum," with no attempt at a "d", which somehow makes it even funnier. If this holds up, we're going to be forced to buy her the little junior drum kit in the window of Manor Music for her birthday ... as it is, she sets up multi-piece kits with upside-down buckets and cups and the tambourine, then sits in front of them oh her footstool with her sticks and just whales away on 'em, every chance she gets.

Doors
It's only a matter of time till she locks herself in a room more or less accidentally. The kid is fascinated by doors, knocking on doors, and shutting and opening doors. Soon enough she'll shut it just right and push the button in, and then we'll have us a good old Incident on our hands.

Play ball!
She kicks the volleyball around the yard, and now she'll pretend to play baseball whenever it's on TV or we're talking about the Yankees -- she'll grab, say, a big wooden kitchen spoon and swing for the fences. Clearly we need to move this game outside.

Big leaps in feeding & dressing
Her fork skillz are better than some four-year-olds', and her spoon skillz are almost as good -- pretty soon we're going to be able to ditch the extra bib when she eats yogurt! As for dressing and undressing herself, as she seems determined to do -- well, she can do nearly all of it except get her pants on all the way and put on her Chucks (she's mastered her soft shoes and boots -- "Boot, ON!" is now a statement, not an appeal for help).

Complete sentences, hilarious phrases
She's bustin' em out all the time now -- "I like it." "I don't know!" "Bless you, Mommy" (for a sneeze). "Baby clean the wall." "Oh my gosh!" "Vacuum, loud!" "Play _____?" "How about ..." and "Did yoooou ..." (drawn out, the way we do when we're trying to think of something to suggest to her). This is all coming along with real efforts at conversational give-and-take -- we'll ask her what she did today, and she'll say "ocean, walking, outside, store", and then prompt her to ask what we did today, and she asks, "Did yoooou ..." So far, she's got nothing to ask (cause she has no idea what we do all day, heh), but the effort is there. And she's great at mimicking the tone of a conversation -- even if she doesn't know what you're talking about, it really seems like she does. :-)

Long memory
Astonishing what she'll remember from one day, week or month to the next. For example: She loves Green Eggs and Ham, because in the end, they're all on the train, going down the hilly tracks into the water, and she says "Mason, slide." As in, Mason goes down the slide into the water ... which was weeks ago. She finds a new way to blow our minds pretty much every day.

Manners
As I always say, a polite baby is welcome anywhere -- and she's learning. She's always willing to say the right things if you nudge her, but she's now getting better at the unprompted please, thank you, you're welcome, and excuse me.

Mamalah
Her grandmother H. has been here a little over a week, and it is just a love fest between the two of them -- R. and I don't even exist when Mamalah's around (which is, of course, how it should be!). It has been so much fun palling around together, and getting to have a bunch of hangout time. I wish we could do this more often.

WORDS!
A partial list of words she's mastered since the last update:
shake
clock
cool
awesome
pool
swim
camera
rock 'n roll
office
move
careful
help
book
sock
knock-knock
night-night
dolphin
sand
butter
shoulder
store
couscous
bonk
fireworks
sticker
oval
square
rectangle
funny
hola
adios
loud
clean
basil
pizza
wash
drain
squash
recycling
broccoli
Celia's
Miriam
belt
people
excuse me
broken
speck
sneezes
zipper
shadow
Jessica
ribbon
Mamalah
yum yum
coffee shop
itch
Neanaw
laces, shoelaces
gym
pocket
hiccup
President