A Real Live Person

As we look at Sam, playing or talking in our midst, Ryan has started shaking his head and saying, "it's like she's a real live person now." Indeed, it is no longer the two of us, two crazy cats and a little baby blob. We now have a burgeoning, wanting-to-be-independent, willful, adorable, real life toddler in our midst.

She is changing so much it is hard to keep up, but since this blog is also her baby book, I wanted to document a few of new things she is doing these days:

New words/sounds: milk, up, my daddo, "baa" for sheep, "wa wa" for water, "no no" when she doesn't want something or you are trying to give her something that isn't quite right, shaking her head "yes" and "no" correctly. She also has her own little language, with "mana" and "owata" being mainstays :-)

She will pretend to tickle herself when she wants me to read her the "Are You Ticklish?" book. She pretends to comb her hair when she wants her comb/brush. She will lie down on the floor with a blanket, a dish towel, a wash cloth, anything that resembles her blankie/lovey to pretend she is sleeping. She walks around carrying the afore mentioned items, holding them tucked beneath her chin like a bib, or trying to cover up Gigi for "nite nite" time.

She puts her hands up in the air as if to say "Where it is?" or "I don't know?" when you ask her to find something that she doesn't immediately see. It is just adorable.

She will walk over to the dishwasher, and point at the food cabinet above, telling us she is hungry and wants something to eat.

In the evening (when it is obvious that she is tired), if I ask her if she is tired and wants to go up for bathtime/bedtime, she will say "bye bye" and start walking to the stairs.

There are several cabinets that she knows she is not allowed into in the kitchen. Two of them have child safety locks on them, but you still have to open them slightly to push down on the lever to open the lock. Sam will start to run across the room, stop and look back at us with a little smirk on her face and glimmer in her eyes, as if to say "I know, I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway," and turn around and go right over to them, attempting to open them. She full of mischief, this one is :-)