You Belong to Me

Ali has been expressing possession for a couple of months now. She can distinguish between "shoe mommy," "shoe daddy," and "shoe Ali." She can say "chair mommy" and "chair Ali." She knows whose sweater is whose, whose coat is whose.

One thing that seemed to have temporarily thwarted her, though, was the idea of "mommy" and "daddy" itself. When we read her books, we talk about the mommy and daddy in the book, so she's become very skilled at accurately identifying males and females. The only problem is that all males are "daddy" and all females are "mommy."

This makes for some awkward social moments. I feel like I need to explain to the strangers she calls "mommy" that she doesn't actually think THEY are her mommy, that's just what she calls women in general. Rather than getting into self-conscious explanations each time, I've settled for saying, "Yes, she's someone's mommy. That's a woman." And then Ali tries to say "woman" and I praise her and we move on.

A couple of weeks ago, we were in sitting in the car in the parking lot at daycare, getting ready to buckle her into her seat and head home. She saw one of her friend's, Julio, leaving with his dad.

"Daddy! Daddy!" Ali said urgently. "Julio!"

"Yes," I told her. "That's Julio with his daddy."

"Julio daddy. Julio daddy!" she exclaimed, finally connecting her knowledge of possessives with this concept.

"That's right! That's Julio's daddy!" I praised her.

Then she looked at me and said "Mommy. Ali Mommy!"

I beamed. "That's right baby! I'm Ali's Mommy!"

And she smiled her huge, gleeful smile, thrilled with herself, with her ability to express her possession of me. She smiled and threw herself forward and gave me a huge hug, saying again, "Ali mommy!"

Being Ali's mommy rocks.

Because it's Valentine's Day...

...and that means that your day should be filled with things that are almost too sweet to handle.

Words on Wednesday

I think blogger is mad at me for uploading so many pictures. So until I figure out a way to get it to forgive me (i.e., let me upload pictures again), wordy updates are all you'll get.

Baby girl is 16 months old. She's technically not a baby anymore, but "toddler girl" just doesn't have the same ring to it, and let's face it, she'll always be MY baby. So baby girl it is. I worry that this might confuse her when we talk about "the baby" that's coming, and then in the next breath I turn around and call her the baby, but she doesn't seem too distraught over the issue. Plus she's turning out to be one smart cookie, so maybe it's not dissonant for her at all.

This is such an amazing and fun age. We are having to start disciplining her, which is such a change from the first year when we just loved her and fed her and made sure she smiled as much as possible. It's hard to see her get frustrated with us, with the boundaries we're setting. It would be so very easy (and is so very tempting) to just give give give and never draw a single line anywhere. But we know that would only hurt her in the long run and that the boundaries, though hard to understand at times, are really good for her. Eeesh, this parenting thing is no joke, eh?

To make up for the new difficulties we face with her, mother nature decided this would be a pretty perfect time to step up the fun factor as well. We run and jump and chase each other and laugh and roll around on the floor. She understands us now (though she doesn't always like what we're saying) and can bring us what we ask her for. She remembers things, like where we leave her toys and where the gift bag that had Elmo's picture on it used to be stacked. She can picking out "match" shoes and tell me what she does and doesn't want to wear. She says bye-bye to her bath toys when bath time is over and patiently lets us brush her teeth (as long as we count while we do it). But with all the fun things we do together and witness her learning, I think her language skills are still the most impressive to me!

She's starting to learn possessives, and will tell us "Mommy shoes" and "Daddy shoes" and "Ali shoes." She's stringing together words into simple sentences, things like "more milk please" (which comes out as "mo mik peeeeese"). She can say multisyllabic words pretty well now, her best being "octopus," which she, amazingly enough, says correctly. She says "besh you" after someone sneezes--all on her own. If she sees a mess, she says "dirty" over and over again until you acknowledge that, yes baby girl, that is, in fact, dirty, and then as you clean it up she says, "kean--tank you!" The other morning, after sleeping in 'til a delicious 9:15 a.m., I peeked out of our bedroom, excited to spend some time with my girl. She flashed me a huge smile, jumped up, said "Mommy!" and then took one look at my bed-hair and told me "brush? Mommy brush! Brush!" (Thanks for that one, sweetie.) AND, she can identify the letters A, B, O, and K, and make their sounds!

In short, she's a talking machine. And I love every single second of it.

In Dos's world, everything is going great! I am just about to the critical 24-week mark, and we'll get a full anatomy scan at our appointment next week--45 minutes of getting to see our little guy on screen and taking pictures of every part of him to make sure that he's developing perfectly. I can't wait! This time around we bought a doppler from a friend and can now listen to his heart beat any time we want, which has become one of my favorite ways to unwind at the end of the day. He's sitting a LOT lower than Ali ever did, so most of his movement involves kicks and punches to my bladder. Super fun stuff. The progress on Ali's big girl room is coming right along--we have the furniture, bedding, and pain color picked out . . . now all we have to do it put it all together!

What else is there? Work is keeping us both busy, and our sweet little baby toddler is keeping us even busier at home. Throw in some time to hang out with friends here and there, maybe the occasional date night, two healthy kitties, and an exciting spring just around the corner, and what can I say?

Life is good.

Ten on Tuesday: Photo Edition

Cutest bath picture EVAH

WOAH!!! Look what I made!

Ali's first legit ponytail

Rockin' out at the children's museum

Loving an evening at the park

Weekend visit with the grands and greats

Silly bath girl

Exploring the museum

Ali's first trip to market

Family!

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

After a long day at school, sometimes you just wanna come home . . .

sit in your chair . . .

and enjoy a nice, relaxing foot massage.

Video Monday

'Cause I love you.

'Cause it's Monday, and nothing makes a Monday better than videos of baby girl.

'Cause she's just too freaking awesome not to share.

Enjoy.

Ali Falls in Love

Ali has never really had a "lovie"--a blanket or stuffed animal that she's particularly attached to and wants to take with her everywhere.

Until yesterday. That's right. At 1 year, 3 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days old, she finally fell in love.

Meet Monkey.

Alex got her Monkey when we were at a store yesterday. She saw him and immediately started doing her signature monkey noise (ooh-ooh-ooh while scratching the top of her head). Heart melting. So he came home with us.

And has been in her death grip loving embrace ever since.

She will give Monkey spontaneous, unprompted hugs with a look of sheer delight on her face.

And spontaneous kisses. And then cackle with glee after each one. How sweet is THAT?

She even shared her breakfast with Monkey, before taking a single bite herself.

And learned how to drink one-handed so that she wouldn't have to put Monkey aside.

And check out this determined girl. Carrying her two boots and Monkey. And when it all came crashing down . . .

...it was a boot that got left behind. She picked up Monkey in one hand, a boot in her second hand, gave the other boot a parting glance, and toddled off.

Just in time for Valentine's Day. Ali's first lovie.