First update of 2010

Wow, I really didn't manage to do a single post in January? Jeez ... well, let's catch up!

Grandma & Grandpa's visit
This is one lucky little girl, to have so many people that love her -- she got to spend a lot of time with her Grandma & Grandpa M. while they were in California over the xmas/New Year holidays. They were very good sports, doing the unceasing bidding of the tiny dictator: "Grandma, sit right here and watch me eat! Grandpa, play baseball -- you trow de ball to Annika!" There was chalk art, hopscotch, millions of stories read and block towers made -- total lovefest all around. She's clearly old enough to remember that kind of fun, too -- still talks about them (although often it's "Grandpa & Grandpa," heh), and definitely looks forward to seeing them again.

Big brothers
We had a Sauce weekend close to my birthday, and let me tell you, M. & H.'s two boys (ages 6 and 8) were the absolute best big brothers ever -- entertaining her, letting her be in on their games as much as was practical, making allowances for her being a toddler and not a kid their age -- it was awesome. She had a blast!

Bathtime
The blue plastic tub has been permanently retired -- she's too big for it now, and besides, she has other ideas about the potential awesomeness of bathtime. Duckies, scoops, pitchers, the whole deal. Takes for-freaking-EVER ...

Reading
No kidding around, she's learning to read. She's always loved books, and she knows her alphabet as well as either of us do, but now -- now she's starting to understand WORDS. It is scary -- she's actually starting to sound out words here and there (e.g. on R.'s shirt, an old Intel giveaway, the made-up word ITANIUM -- she put her finger to it, and from left to right, said "tan-e-um" -- and neither of us had taught her that one). Her new favorite thing on the iPhone is this app called FirstWords -- you drag the letter tiles into place to spell a word they show you, and as you do it, it says the letter; when it's complete, it spells the word out loud, then says the word, then plays a little animation with sound that illustrates it. She can play that thing ALL DAY if you let her. Wild.

New shoes
So it turns out her Chucks, which we knew were due for replacement, are not just one size too small. No ... they're TWO sizes too small now. Yay, parents of the year! Oh well ... so while we wait for a replacement pair of Chucks via Internet, we got her some hilarious running shoes at Target that look almost exactly like my high-end Asics ones -- she loves them so much that she ran over to show them to all her teachers at babyschool first thing Monday morning.

Fashion
She has developed a serious will about her clothes -- insisting on "de RED shirt" or "Not dose kinds of pants! I want to wear de black pants, Mommy!", pitching a king-hell screaming crying freakout over something she doesn't want to wear, etc. It's bizarre how suddenly this started, but it is The Way now.

Sesame Street
For Christmas, Grandma & Grandpa gave her these two DVDs, 40 Years of Sunny Days, which is sort of a best-of from all 40 seasons, and daaaaaamn, does she love it! Every day she wants to watch "monstos," aka Sesame Street. Lucky we love it too -- but we gotta get some more episodes, I tell you what!

In general ...
Life with Annika is pretty freakin' great. Despite the occasional Amazing Tantrum, she is such a sweet kid, so curious and funny, always singing and talking and joking around -- it doesn't take much to make her happy, she's about as easygoing as a toddler could be, and we just adore her.