Merry Christmas (aka What's that right there?)

Christmas was so much fun!!! Dave had Christmas eve & day off which was wonderful. Christmas morning, he & I got up and made breakfast while Dillon slept in until after 8:30. We ate breakfast then got down to the business of opening gifts. She didn't quite know what to do at first, then figured it out pretty quickly and turned into quite the expert present opener. This meant we each had help opening our own gifts! She got several books, the Learning Tower I mentioned in an earlier post, and some really cute clothes ("Oh my gosh, how cute!" she declared. Wonder where she got that?!) She's been enjoying her Legos and new Baby Einstein video from Nana and her new tennis shoes, now known as Nana's shoes. She loves her new doll and handmade cradle from Mimi and Addy. The doll has gone through various stages of undress, and is now laying on the floor naked. What is it with kids and dolls having to be naked?! She's tried several of her animals in the cradle and has even gotten in it herself a few times. "Dillon too big" she says about that. She's also really enjoying the Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls that Courtney got her as well as the Magna Doodle. She's decided that it must always have a horsey drawn on it. Unfortunately, she knows how to erase it, so the requests for "draw horsey" are frequent. The horseys get more and more abstract looking as the day goes on, strangely enough!

As she was standing on the Learning Tower watching Daddy put together his dressing for Christmas dinner, she spotted a robot sitting on the table that was Dave's when he was a kid. And thus started the newest and most popular phrase over the last couple of days-- "what's that right there?" It used to be that "what's that?" was good enough, but now it's a whole sentence used very liberally. She wants to know what everything "right there" is. It's pretty cute, I have to admit.

We made the right call in getting a shorter tree for Christmas- she's been fascinated with the ornaments. There's a couple of non breakable ones that are low enough for her to reach and play with but there are frequent requests to be held up to see the ones out of her reach. I'm pretty sure there would have been a toppled tree if it had been a full size one.

Next year will really be fun since she'll have a better idea of what is going on. Dave really enjoyed the staying up late on Christmas eve playing Santa.

We were amazed the other day as she was looking at the keypad to the phone, she said "8, 9 10 11 12" Wow! She wasn't pointing to the right numbers, but she did recognize that those were numbers. She will also say "E, F, R" for letters. She's brilliant, I tell you!

I know all moms think their child is brilliant, but mine really is!

Christmas tree doin'?

We put up the Christmas tree yesterday afternoon. For the sake of my sanity and desire to not have to constantly tell Dillon to stay away from the tree, we chose to get a smaller tree which we have sitting on top of a small table. It's just high enough that she can see it well, but not get a good enough grip on it to pull it over on herself. Or get ahold of the ornaments. Dave did most of the work of putting up the tree, so it now known as Daddy's Christmas Tree. When she woke up this morning, she wanted to know "Christmas tree doin'?" "Umm, just sitting there honey." What else do Christmas trees do, exactly? Just wasn't sure how to answer that question. I'm sure it's just the beginning of many questions that she'll ask that I won't know how to answer.

We got about 3 inches of snow last night. It started snowing yesterday evening and we stepped out on the back patio to see it. Of course, then she didn't want to come in. "Walk in snow!!" We hadn't put coats on, so she was quite upset with me when we had to come in. It's tough to understand the danger of below freezing temperatures when there's all that fun stuff to play in! She was a little happier at being able to leave shoeprints on top of the picnic table and the grill then looking at them from the inside. It's just the little things that make the difference, I suppose. We went out again this morning before I had to leave for work. Bless her heart, between 2 layers of clothes, snowsuit, snowboots, hats, gloves and 3 inches of snow, balance was impossible. She kept falling down, then couldn't get herself up again. "Momma hold you!" she kept saying. Poor thing. She wasn't as upset at having to come in this time!

There's a newfound fascination with the toilet at our house. She drags a stepstool over to the toilet, puts her little seat up there and says "Diaper off!" As soon as she sits down there is a request for "wipee." Then a flush and another wipee request. And another flush. Sense a pattern here? The very vital part of this that is missing is the peeing part. Thus far, as far as she is concerned, the toilet is for sitting and throwing wipees in. Oh yeah, and for sticking you face in and declaring "Smells good!" For all the imitating she does, I'm going to give her full credit for thinking that one up all on her own!

C'mon Satch-o

She will stand at the back door and yell this outside. Sometimes she even does it when satchmo's not out there, at which time he stands there and looks at me like "what's with her?" She's even starting to be helpful with taking care of him. I can ask her to let Satchmo in and she'll open the door wide enough for him to get in. She knows that he gets a treat when he goes outside, so she starts dancing around say "Satch-o treat." While that sounds really sweet, what she really does is get the treat in her hand, then run off to a corner somewhere and put it in her mouth. It's easy to find her, though- it's whatever corner that Satchmo is also standing in. Eventually she'll hand it over, but often only once it has gotten positively disgusting and slimy. He doesn't seem to be too particular about it and will eat it anyway.


She's developing all these cute phrases that she uses- like "oh no! What happened?"
I guess I've said this to her a few times because she goes around saying it all the time! Anytime she falls down, anytime someone else falls down, anytime one of her babies supposedly falls down or falls over, they get an "Oh no!! What happened?" then a hug and a kiss. She also says "how cute!" or "how pretty!" fairly often as well. Dave was holding her up to the window earlier this evening and she could reach the curtain. She took hold of it to look at it and declared "How pretty!"
"Cuddle mamma" is a pretty popular one as well. She'll follow me around, especially if I'm trying to do something and say "hug mamma!" or "cuddle Mamma!" So, of course I do it happily, because, really, how do you resist that?!

Snow

Snow!!

We got about 1/2 an inch of snow this morning, so we did what all kids love to do-- played in it. This is really the first snow fall that she has any awareness of and she had a ball playing in it! At first she just kept walking around, looking at her footprints saying "walking snow?" Then I showed her how to make snowballs and throw them so they'd break. "Momma more!" she said. As further proof that she is her daddy's child, once the snow was more or less gone this afternoon, she kept saying "more snow, more snow." I assured there would be more and then some.

This evening I told her that it was time to go change her diaper and she said "No!" and ran and hid between the fridge and the dishwasher (we have a portable dishwasher) and giggled. She loves to get in between there and have me pretend like I can't find her. So, that's what we did- I'd find her and carry her back to her room. She'd jump off the bed, go hide in the same spot and yell "Find Dillon!" I'd look in the cabinets and in the dog treat jar and in the sink, all the while with Dillon absolutely squealing with laughter. Then, of course, a big production about finding her and carrying her back to her room to start the game all over again.

Once that game was fininshed, she laid on the bed with Dave and said "Daddy tired." She patted him on the back a few times, gave him a hug, kissed his nose and told him the kiss would "make it better."

Isn't she just the sweetest?!

Who's that?

She now has to know who everyone in her vicinity is. Repeatedly. Over and over she'll ask "who's that?" To her credit, once she remembers the answer, she stops asking who they are and starts asking what they are doing. We went to some friend's house Thanksgiving Day. Dillon kept asking who everyone was and was told that's Will, that's Mary, etc. Mary's name was the one that stuck. All afternoon, anytime she'd lose sight of Mary she'd ask "Mary doin'?" and we'd have to find Mary to see what she was doing.

Actually, I think the whole experience of having a toddler at their house for the afternoon was an eye-opener for Will and Mary, who are expecting their first child in February. Dillon behaved beautifully, but was, of course, a typical toddler. One of her main points of fascination was the cat. When the cat was nowhere to be found, the litter box became the next point of fascination. The poop obsession is still there, afterall. I did manage to keep her out of the litter box, but we had to have more conversations about cat poop than I ever care to have again! I also had to get up no less than 10 times during the 45 minutes or so that we were eating dinner. The look on their faces was one of fear that that was what they were in for. I assured them that this stage doesn't hit until they get really mobile and that it's a lot easier to deal with when you are in your own environment rather than someone else's home. I'm not sure they were convinced.

We spent a good bit of our day today cooking our own Thanksgiving dinner, which we'll finish and actually eat tomorrow. Dillon asked lots of times "Momma doin'?" then "Daddy doin'?" once he woke up and joined in. For Christmas we are getting her this thing called a Learning Tower so that she can see what we are doing. As she gets old enough to be able to do so, I'll let her start helping mix things and such. As it is, she loves to play at the sink pretending she is washing the dishes. It's actually one of the few things that will keep her occupied for a good 15 or 20 minutes. I'm pretty excited about it and I think she will love it.

Actually, I think she'll think Christmas in general is pretty cool- especially pulling ornaments off of the tree!

E-I-E-I-O

Got and robe and my slippers. Where's my newspaper? 


E-I-E-I-O---- Or something like that! She was requesting the ever changing rendition of Old MacDonald. Usually she just requests it by animal, as in "Sing cow" or "Sing horsey." Last night it was this jumble of words that started with "sing," included "horsey" and culminated in a very rough version of the E-I-E-I-O. There were a few unrecognizable words in there as well. It was so cute!! I just had to laugh!

The robe she has on in the picture was a Christmas gift from Mimi & Addy last year. It's so funny to put it on her now and see how short it's gotten on her. It used to go down past her knees- now it doesn't even cover her diaper! We;ve used it a ton and I'll be sad when she outgrows it completely. The shoes are a recent gift from Daddy. We received them in the mail, I put them on her. 45 minutes later one of them was missing and stayed that way for 2 weeks. I looked EVERYWHERE for that silly thing. It turned out to be under her dresser. Didn't witness how it got there and can't even begin to venture a guess. There's a lot of things like that around here-- how did she get ahold of the digital camera that was sitting at the very back of the dresser beyond her reach ("camera-- toes" she says because she wants to see her toes on the screen on the back of the camera)? How did her sippy cup get down in the basement? How did the phone get dunked underwater? Ah, the little mysteries of having a toddler in the house.

Dave comes home today- thank goodness. While I have certainly enjoyed all the one on one time with Dillon, I've really missed him. Dillon will enjoy going to the airport and seeing the plane land and getting to see her Daddy. She does this great little happy dance when she sees him. It rivals any touchdown dance and is just a great deal cuter than an adult male doing it!

Dillon's mama

She's figuring out possesion, as in what belongs to whom. This morning she kept coming up to me saying "Dillon's mama!" and hugginhg my leg. Awwwwwww- now if that won't make your heart melt :-) I remember one of the first times I heard another child refer to me as Dillon's mom- it was just the best feeling. She now goes all around the house identifying what belongs to mama ("Mama's coffee") and what belongs to Daddy ("Daddy's shoes") and Dillon ("Dillon's boots!!")

She's also into figuring out what fits into a certain space. We've been doing some moving furniture around with the painting and things, so she's had a good time trying to see what spaces she fits into. What's funny is that she was trying to fit through a space too small for her one evening. What she finally decided it just wasn't going to work, she got the picture of she and Mam-maw that we have framed and tried it several different directions until she got it to go through the space. She then proudly declared "Mam-maw fit!" Pretty creative, we thought.

Dave is in Arkansas deer hunting right now. I've been telling her all week that Daddy is in Arkansas and will be coming back at the end of the week. Tonight during dinner she said "arkansas, daddy?" out of the blue. Wow. That's a pretty big word. I was impressed! A little later, we were sitting in the floor reading "The Foot Book" and she pointed to her right foot at one of the pages that talks about right feet and said "Dillon right foot." I asked her which one was her right foot and she pointed to the correct one. So I asked which one was the left foot and she pointed to the left foot. Hmmmm..... I asked her which was my right foot and she got it right again, then did the same with the left foot. I think it's safe to say she knows right and left feet! I was even more impressed with that than I was her saying Arkansas!

Now, as for just the plain old cute stuff she says and does, there's a list--- "Gotcha!" "Silly Dillon" "Sing bus" (translation: sing "wheels on the bus")"ABC's" (sing ABC's) "Yummy!" said when she's pretending to taste something she's pretended to cook. "Baby sad" said anytime she hears a baby crying. She's also now starting to act out these whole scenarios with baby where she will make the baby sit (said in the same tone of voice used to get Satchmo to sit when he's all riled up), then lay down for a diaper change, complete with diaper wipe. Then she'll pretend to rock and nurse the baby, then walk around in the mini-stroller with baby. She's holding a whole conversation with the baby this whole time. The imitation is amazing, because she is imitating so much of what I do with her. Thank goodness she hasn't imitated anything that's made me cringe just yet! I'm sure that's coming!

Momma doin'? Daddy doin'?

Just in case there's a foot of snow in the living room.....

I finally got to start painting the dining room after months of stripping wallpaper, then spackling, then sanding and on and on. Dillon was quite fascinated with the painting. She kept asking "momma doin'?" This was often followed by "Dillon doin'" without the inflection of a question. That was followed by "I'm sorry, honey, you can't help momma with this paint." Can you imagine the mess?? I mean, the pink carpet is bad enough all by itself, but add in pumpkin butter colored paint and Dillon and that's the making of a certifiable catastrophe!

Anytime Dave goes down to the basement to work on the computer, Dillon stands at the top of the stairs yelling "Daddy!" the "Daddy doin'?" Then she starts launching toys through the gate rails down the stairs. There's a whole array of items on the stairs to pick up at any given time. She gets extra points if she can land something in Satchmo's water. It sits on the stairs so that we don't have a constant bowl of dogfood soup, which is undoubtedly one of her favorite things about having a dog.

Right now, I'm looking out the window at snow flurries. It was 20 degrees this morning when I got up. Winter is coming. Ugh. I'm so not ready. Dillon is with her snow boots, though!

Two moons

She's learning her numbers! Wednesday night she was gathering teddy bears to carry around. She picked up two and said "two bears!" I figured it was just lucky guess and didn't think a lot about it. Thursday morning as I was getting ready for work, she brought both of her copies of Goodnight Moon to me and said "Two moons!" That evening she was carrying around 2 containers of diaper cream and kept saying "two! two!" She knows two!

Dave got her some purple snow boots to wear this winter. They have been the hugest hit! She wants to wear them all the time-- with or without clothes. After a diaper change this evening she ran, got them and put them on before I could get a diaper and clothing back on her. I guess it's good they are waterproof, just in case she does pee on them!

She is still talking like crazy- unless, of course, someone in public speaks to her, then she's quiet as a church mouse. In the grocery store on Tuesday, this very nice old man tried so hard to get her to talk to him and she would have no part of it. Once he was out of her sight, she starting chattering up a storm again. Tonight she was saying "call me darlin," in imitation of me singing that line out of that old country song,"you don't have to call me darlin', darlin'..."

Today, we painted (which she only liked a little) and played with playdoh(which she like a lot). We made houses and letters and numbers and hats and balls to name a few. She, fortunately, is smart enough to not eat it once she tastes how salty it is. Satchmo, on the other, hand, not so smart. Twice I had to shoo him away from a chunk of playdoh that had made it to the floor, once while I was on the phone with the dentist's office trying to re-schedule an appointment. Each time he'd already gotten a pretty good bite eaten. The saltiness didn't seem to faze him too much, but he has certainly put away some water tonight! Hopefully we don't wake up tomorrow to find him all swollen up from water retention.

Never a dull moment around here, I tell ya!

Leaves

Just wanted to show how many leaves we had in the back. These are raked into a pile, but it's a huge pile- even with the seat of the chair. She had a good time playing in them, though.

Halloween ladybug

Here's our little ladybug. She wanted no part of the hat that's part of the costume. She wouldn't even leave it on long enough for me to get a picture. We went out to our town square where there were all kinds of Halloween activities- face painting, ghost stories, free pizza and cookies and horse drawn wagon rides around the town square. She enjoyed that a lot and kept wanting to pet the horses. The biggest hit of the whole evening was getting to play in the water puddles on the way back to the car. It's good that we don't live far from the town square since she was pretty much soaking wet from the knees down!

Punkins

They are everywhere!! Last night we drove 40 minutes north to the little town of Piermont to see jack-o-lanterns. This little town sponsors this event each year and goes all out for it. There must have been 1000 carved pumpkins to see. Part of them were in a field, part were in a simple cornstalk maze, part were just in large arrangements on the side of the road. They were some of the most intricately carved pumpkins I had ever seen Most were anyway-- there were a few that looked like someone punched them a couple of times, put a candle in it and called it done. In any case, Dillon enjoyed walking around and spending some time with her friend Pierce, whose mother's idea it was to go see all these pumpkins in the first place.

So, today, we went to a local farmer's market and picked out a "punkin" of our very own. Still haven't decided whether to actually carve it or just leave it whole and let Dillon roll it around. I guess we'll see what the weather's like tomorrow. No way am I carving it inside. There's enough mess in the house without adding pumpkin goo to the mix! There are a couple of community sponsored Halloween events tomorrow that we're planning on attending. Of course, Dillon will be looking o-so-cute in her ladybug costume.

Just a quick note about the cute things she does. Apparently, when I put a hat on her, I often declare "cute!" afterward. The reason I know this is that she finds things to put on my head, then stands back a little and says "Cute!" :-)

Boo-boos and kisses

She has finally figured out kisses! We can say "Give me a kiss" and she'll lean in and smack her lips together. More often than not, she's just kissing air, but she's figured out the idea. She's also figured out that boo-boos are made better by kisses, so now all little hurts require kisses. Very often the babies hurt their toes and need kisses. Mom and Dad get boo-boos and need kisses. Satchmo has been the attempted target of a few kisses, but so far that's a no-go.

Speaking of Satchmo-- those two are like siblings. They torment one another endlessly. She torments him on any occasion he is sitting still in a reachable place-- like the couch. He torments her any time she has food. He steals food from her so she steals and eats his food. For a while we were letting her give him his treat after he went outside, but ended up chasing her through the house too many times trying to get the treat out of her mouth. Now she doesn't get to give Satchmo his treat anymore!

We're still working on raking up the 2 billion leaves in the yard. Dillon thinks it's pretty fun to stand in the middle of the pile you are creating. She also thinks it's fun to throw her ball into the pile. Unfortunately, the ball is only 4" in diameter and quickly drowns in the leaf pile, so that's a short-lived game! She had a good time playing in the fairly empty storage shed yesterday. "Daddy sit," "Door" (translation: close the bottom half of the door please, momma)"Dillon out, help" (translation: I want you to help me out of here so I can promptly crawl right back into her and ask you to shut the door again). We worked on "Dillon, rake leaves," but that, like giving Satchmo kisses, was a dismal failure.

Imagination

There's still lots of pretending going on around here. Her babies get lots of diaper changes. "Duckie," this obnoxious music-playing plastic duck sits at the table with her during lunch so she'll eat. Duckie gets a bite, Dillon takes a bite. But now she's starting to show her imagination. We were grocery shopping last week and I bought some canned pumpkin to make pumpkin bread. I handed it to her just to give her something to hold. She put it to her mouth and tipped it up, then said "coffee!" No, we don't give her coffee, but she does see us drink it. This evening she crawled into this rolling kitchen cart thing we have and said "Daddy! Push car!" As it was being pushed, she said "beep beep!" Lots of giggling went along with this. It's interesting to see how she is starting to pretend that an object is something else, whereas before it was mostly imitation. (I knew I needed to stop feeding the plastic duck at the table!). She's gotten a lot more into the kitchen stuff and likes to pretend she's cooking when I am. The cardboard stove I made her out of boxes and duck tape has become one of her favorite toys. She also likes it because she can move it from place to place.

We went to the park for a little while today & let her swing. It was pretty cold, so we didn't stay all that long. We did, though, come home, eat a snack and warm up, then go outside here at home. I worked on raking some leaves and Dillon worked on jumping in them. Pretty cute. She hasn't quite figured out how to throw them everywhere. Or maybe she doesn't see the need since they are already everywhere. She wanted to help rake, but gave up on it rather quickly since the pile of leaves was already as tall as she is.

All seems to be going well with Courtney coming to the house to watch Dillon on my work days. She takes her to the community playgroups which she says that Dillon really seems to enjoy. Poor Courtney, though, her car rolled down our driveway on Monday and rolled into a rock at the bottom. It did some damage to the bumper and the muffler. Thankfully she & Dillon were not in it at the time. Not sure what happened. Maybe too many leaves out there-- I better get Dillon trained on how to rake those things. She's got more energy that any of us!

At the park 


Yummy chili! 

Just a quick note tonight. We had chili tonight & Dillon enjoyed it a great deal as you can tell from the picture. She's having a night in which bedtime is meaningless. So, it's now 9:41pm and she's wandering the house just as happy as a clam while her parents are exhausted and ready for her to wear out. We don't want her to go to bed because she's tired-- it's because we're tired!! Even Satchmo wants her to go to bed. He's in his house and she's poking at him through the holes in the sides saying "doggie, doggie, house, doggie, bed, doggie, sleep." Poor Satchmo. Poor Mom & Dad.

Hiking

We went hiking on Friday! Dave got home really early, it was a beautiful day, the colors are gorgeous- we just couldn’t resist. So, we loaded up the backpack, some water and snacks and off we went for a hike around the same mountain pond that my friend Ginger & I hiked around. Dillon has now decided that the backpack is only fun for a little while and that walking is much more fun. So, needless to say, we didn’t really hike all that far despite being gone for almost 2 hours! It was fun letting her walk on the trail and to her credit, she stuck to it pretty well. Much more difficult was getting her to stay in forward motion—there are LOTS of fun things to look at in the woods. As an added bonus, she got to see a dog jump into the water, then shake all the water off. She was just in heaven!

Hiking with Daddy 

Dave was on call at the hospital yesterday, so it was just she & I. We went to the local farmer’s market in the morning. The pumpkins are starting to appear! It was fun seeing all the kids there running around the pumpkins. It’s also kind of sad to think that this particular farmer’s market shuts down in about 3 weeks until next April. That means winter is coming.

I took her to one of the local parks in the afternoon after a much-too-short nap. She’s now brave enough to climb right up on the playground equipment, walk across the little bridge thing to the spiral slide and head on down. She used to wait on me to go down with her but no more. Once she gets to the bottom, she walks right around, goes to the steps and climbs up to do it again. Of course, I’m up there to make sure she doesn’t decide to go down one of the structures that have to be climbed down. She has such a good time of it!

sliding 

It seems as though she’s getting a molar. Ugh. She’s been really emotionally fragile and everything sends her into tears. She’s also been running a mild fever. I can feel a hard, raised area in the right molar area of her mouth. It also looks a little red and swollen. Most of the rest of her teeth have come through relatively easily- this time seems to be agonizing at best. She’s also been particularly attached to her Daddy. She’s spent lots of time today cuddled up on his shoulder or in his lap. He admits that he hates it that she feels bad, but really enjoys the snuggling with her. I think she misses him a lot when he’s on call. Really, I do too.

Back to a dull roar

My apologies for the delay in posting new entries. The last 2 weeks have been pretty stressful and nothing I really wanted to document. The child care situation I referred to in the last post ended almost as quickly as it started. It was just a poor match between us and this particular lady. Each day that Dillon was there, the situation got worse. Never was it a matter of Dillon not being cared for, but just one where all parties were unhappy. She has a fairly small space that the kids spent their day in, which did not work well for Dillon who wants to roam. Besides the unfortunate falling apart of yet another child care situation was the fact that my normally very social baby has suddenly become very scared of me leaving her somewhere. We went to our playgroup that we’ve been going to for the last month or so and she cried and wouldn’t let me put her down. It took her a good 15-20 minutes before she believed that I wasn’t leaving her. Never before did the thought even seem to cross her mind.

It has all worked out, though. Courtney, the girl that has done most of our babysitting in the past was available to come to the house the 2 days a week that I am working. She gets Dillon dressed, takes her places, plays outside with her, and takes a nap with her (after rocking her to sleep, thank you!). Dillon, in turn, looks very happy when I come home. She also just spontaneously says Courtney’s name on the days Courtney isn’t here. Hopefully this will last for a while.

So on to the cute things she is doing. She’s still a total chatterbox! She’s starting to put together more 3 word sentences. “There’s a circle” is a fairly distinct one. Its funny how many people will stop us in the grocery store to comment on how god her vocabulary it—because she & I have been chatting the whole way through the store! She’s also really into poop right now. She’ll tell me that the baby has pooped, so I’ll get her a wipe. She’ll make this big production about lifting the baby’s legs (and all babies are subject to this special treatment), wiping the baby’s bum and then putting a diaper of some sort on the baby. We also have to talk about how everything poops. She’s particularly fascinated with the fact that Satchmo poops. She’ll go on & on about it for most of a morning if she happens to notice him pooping outside.

We went to the park this afternoon so she could play on the swings. It’s definitely getting to be fall—the high today was around 47 degrees, though it isn’t supposed to continue being that cold. I didn’t dress either of us warmly enough, so we both had cold hands when we left the park 45 minutes after we got there. But not before watching a squirrel puttering around. She kept calling it a mouse and asking to pet it. I explained that it is a wild animal and we don’t pet wild animals—only look at them. She seemed OK with this, though we did follow it around for a while from a safe distance. And true to form, there was the inevitable question of “Squirrel poop?”

Thankfully not right then, it didn’t!

Circles, ABC’s and hugs

Those are the current topics of fascination for Dillon. She has figured out circles and points them out all over the place. I handed her a slice of a sweet potato a couple of days ago and she proudly pointed out “circle.” Sure enough was. She finds them in books, around the house, outside- you name it. Sometimes she can point out squares but they frequently get mixed up with triangles. I’m just impressed she knows circle. She also knows that letters are “ABC’s,” that being her generic name for all letters. She also finds letters everywhere, including in the airport. We were sitting down to eat at Chili’s in the Charlotte airport (during our 6 hour layover) when she pointed to the large A on the wall indicating Concourse A and told me “ABC’s” She frequently will request the ABC song during diaper changes. Of course I often get as far as D and she tells me no. I’m not sure if that’s a commentary on my singing or just all she can absorb for the moment. I’ll request that comments on that point be kept private!

As for the hugs- they are the best. She will come up to me out of the blue, announce “hug!” and throw her arms around me. Even better is when I wrap my arms around her and pick her up off the ground in a big bear hug. Then it’s a hug accompanied by giggles. Last night it was a round of hugs for Momma and Da, then a request for “kiss.”
She gets the idea that you lean in for a kiss, but doesn’t quite get the pucker up part. She’ll get really close, then turn her cheek to your lips. Maybe she’s just practicing being a princess.

She started Monday at the new babysitter’s. The day went smoothly with the distinct exception of naptime. The sitter thinks I should stop rocking Dillon to sleep so that she learns to go to sleep on her own. The sitter provides lots of comfort to her, but doesn’t want to start rocking her because the other kids will want to rock as well. Really makes me question continuing with this sitter, but admittedly, Dillon seems pretty happy there otherwise. My feeling is that I absolutely love the time with Dillon when we are nursing and rocking and she is drifting off to sleep. I can’t imagine not doing it because there’s no doubt in my mind that she loves it as much as I do. My other feeling is that I truly believe that she will have no trouble falling asleep on her own when she is 15 years old despite the fact that I now rock her to sleep. What’s the hurry in making her independent anyway- she’s only 19 months old? A soapbox for another day, I suppose. As for now, we’ll keep on nursing and rocking and loving every minute of it.

Watching the birds with Uncle Randy 
This was taken at the Little Rock zoo

Back home

Traveling with a toddler is always an adventure. I have to give it to her, though- she’s a great traveler. I could not have asked for her to do any better with the flight delays and missed connection on the way to Little Rock. Since I’m a believer in making toys out of what you have, the only entertainment I brought with us was a few of the more loved books and her doll. In her eyes, the airport was one great big toy. The people walking by were fun to talk to, the moving sidewalks were a blast, other people’s strollers were fun to steal and the trucks—those were the big winners. What she called trucks were actually those things that look like extended golf carts that make that obnoxious beeping sound like a garbage truck stuck in reverse. They were everywhere in both the LaGuardia and Charlotte airports and she loved it. She even got to climb onto one that was stopped. I think it was the highlight of the day for her!

We had a great time seeing everyone in Little Rock. She’s so much more active and interactive now. She enjoyed showing off her verbal skills and added several more words, including a few three word sentences. She made her first visit to the zoo while we were there. You never know how they are going to react to real animals versus the pictures. We got to see monkeys, giraffes, elephants, camels, birds, snakes and a few more I’m surely forgetting. There was a small petting area with these very friendly pygmy goats that ate all the dead leaves off the ground. She was not terribly interested in petting them, but really wanted me to. She thought all the animals were pretty cool, but what did she seem to love the most? The silly train that we paid $2 to ride in about a 100 yd circle with lovely views of overgrown bamboo, some discarded soda bottles and a few dead fish. She talked about the choo choo for the rest of the trip. Just when you think you know what they are going to like and they go and pick something else.

Now that we’re back, we’re trying to get back into our routine. I’m finding that unpacking the suitcase is a little more challenging with a toddler around. Actually, to be more precise, unpacking it isn’t a problem. Getting things were they need to be is the problem. I keep finding things under the dining room table that need to be put away. She keeps trying to put all of her clothes on- as pants. Of course every pair of shoes has to be tried on.

The weather’s getting cooler and the leaves are starting to change. For those that had planned to make a trip here to see the colors, you have about 2-3 weeks before they are at peak color then maybe a week after that before they are pretty much gone. If you are thinking of doing it next year, make note that the end of September is typically peak color. If I were smart, I’d tell everyone that it happens a few weeks later than it does- then we’d have help raking the 2 billion leaves that grace our yard!

Maybe I should look at getting some of those goats….

Big blue eyes 

Darned Gravity!

Bless her heart, Dillon keeps hurting herself. Everytime I turn around she’s falling down. Earlier in the week, she fell pretty hard into the door facing and left herself with a good sized bump and bruise on her forehead. To make matters worse, I saw her do it and couldn’t get to her fast enough to stop her from getting hurt. Out in the yard she is constantly falling forward. Most of the time she is pretty unfazed by this, sometimes there is as much as a little whine and declaration of a hurt body part before a bug or airplane or car catches her attention. Yesterday she actually went rolling down the hill in the front yard. We were out looking at the trees in the front yard, when apparently the steepness of the hill got the better of her and she went rolling. She landed very safely in some leaves, very wide-eyed. That took a little more than a passing bug, car or airplane to get over. But get over it she did, and all remains well. Tonight she was climbing from a couple of couch cushions on the floor onto the chair, then over the arm of the chair onto the ottoman that it sitting beside the chair. There was a look of pure joy on her face as she realized how fun that was and that she had done it herself.

Her talking seems to still be advancing at a phenomenal rate. Over the last few days she has started really babbling in full sentences. She has done the babbling for a while, but this has an entirely different quality—more that of sentences with a story to tell. If you give her some encouragement as in “I did not know that!” or “Really?” she’ll phrase another series of babbled words into something that sounds like and answer.

It’s been a busy week around here with me working more than usual in anticipation of being off for our upcoming trip to Little Rock. Dillon has enjoyed to one on one attention of the girls that have been coming to babysit, but has missed having as much one on one time with Mama. I’ve missed it too, and find that my head just isn’t really in work when I’m away from her. It’s been nice weather all week, so we’ve been able to get outside and even play in the water a bit as she got to do today. Dave’s been getting home early enough to join us outside, so we’ve had some great family time. It’s just too sad to think that in a matter of weeks, the leaves will be off the trees and we’ll be looking for our first snowfall. Guess we better get started teaching her how to shovel snow!

Pretending

It is absolutely fascinating the view you get into a child's mind as they start pretend playing. Dillon is really getting into pretending to do things. She likes to sit her baby in an opening in her activity table and pretend to feed her, complete with spoon and sippy cup. Actual food is optional. She likes to pretend to put a diaper and shoes on the baby. She likes for baby to sit in her lap when we watch one of her animal videos (also named baby- it's a pretty versatile word around here). She'll pretend that the baby wants to nurse, but then at the last minute decide that she wants to waaayyyy more than baby does, so baby gets ditched. One day she was pretending to pick things off the floor and hand them to Dave & I. I need to cultivate that little activity- it could come in useful one day!

Yesterday we went back to Billings Farm for their annual Children's Day. She got to see more of the cows, sheep, horses and chickens. The cows remained the favorite, despite getting a little freaked out by a calf that walked up to us. She was holding onto Da so tightly that I think he could've let go and she wouldn't have gone anywhere! Somewhere on the way home, she saw a swing and started saying "whee!" Pretty soon the "whee's" overtook the moos and baas, so we went to a park with one of those bucket style swings. She had a blast with Da pushing her on the swing, alternating between a exuberant "whee" and an equally exuberant "push!"

We came home and decided to grill burgers. Dillon, Satchmo and I were standing outside when I saw something move in the woods. It turned out to be a yearling deer. It was a safe distance from us, sucessfully managing to ignore Satchmo barking, Dillon saying "Dee!" and Dave coming outside. It just poked around until it eventually wandered out of sight. Unfortunately, this prompted several "more dee" for Dillon, followed by "go?" All was made well by being able to say "bye dee."

As for today, naptime is over and all efforts on my part to make pretend sleeping as much fun as pretend playing have thus far been futile. So, we'll make the best of the day and go see how much fun the world can be.

Feeding baby 

More Da

She is learning new words and phrases at an amazing rate, or so it seems to us. "More Da" is a popular one over the last few days. Dave was mowing grass & I held Dillon up to the window to see him. She got too heavy so I told her I was going to have to put her down. She immediately started crying "more Da, more Da!" So, of course I held her up to the window a little longer. When he came inside it was "BIG Da!" She saw his car the other day and said "Da car." She told a little girl in the grocery store "bye baby." "Baby duck" remains pretty popular too. She has also said elbow, shirt, swimming, pet. And we can't leave out Dave's favorite-- booger. I told her I needed to get the booger out of her nose one evening. She allowed me to do so but only after having said booger a half dozen times. Now she'll walk up to you, look up your nose and say booger, then crinkle her nose for added effect. Lovely.

She made some friends yesterday afternoon at the park. Our city has a girl's soccer league that was having practice at this park. We happened to be in the area of the field as the girls were arriving. Of course, several little girls (probably 8-9-10 age) and a toddler- it's like a match made in heaven! Dillon would take anyone's finger that was willing to walk with her and lead them around wherever she thought to go. The girls shared the soccer ball with her, got her to roll it to them, and absolutely delighted her by kicking it into the goal. She also got to see a man exercising his dog by hitting a ball with a tennis racket for the dog to catch. She just squealed when the dog would catch the ball in the air. She never wanted to pet the dog, just follow it around and watch it. I'm sure she was thinking "Why doesn't my dog do that? All he does is bark and try to steal my food." Maybe that's why she's always trying to steal his food!

Today is her 18 month appointment with the pediatrician, so we'll see how much she weighs and how much taller she's gotten- which is quite a bit. All those 12-18 month clothes that were 2-3 inches to long at the beginning of the summer now fit perfectly. I noticed the other day that I can see the top of her head over the chair when she walks by. She's losing the fat rolls on her legs and her torso just looks so much thinner. She looks more like a toddler than a baby. Part of me is sad and nostalgic for the little baby that she isn't any more and the rest of me is just excited to see what comes next. All the talk about how fun it is to re-experience the world through your child's eyes is completely true, even if the experience of choice happens to be boogers.

Hiking

Dillon & I went hiking with our friends Ginger & Ben on Wednesday. We've been hiking with them several times before and always have a great time. I had gotten a map of all of the local trails and had found a new one I wanted to try. Ginger was up for it, so off we went. It was supposed to be a trail leading down to the banks of the Connecticut River. Unfortunately, the trail was not well maintained, so it was overgrown and bug infested. It was also more or less underneath the I-89 overpass to the Connecticut River so it was also noisy. We kept thinking that it would get pretty just around the next bend, but finally ended up just adandoning that hike and heading over to another trail we had done before and knew was nice. Dillon enjoyed riding in the backpack, but started to get bored by the end of it. She kept saying "go!" then "UP!" when go didn't do the trick. All in all, though, the hike was nice with beautiful views of a mountain pond. This nice lady at offered to take our picture as we were leaving, hence the "I'm really sweaty, but this was a great hike!" picture below.

I have such a good time watching Dave and Dillon together. He hasn't been getting home until around 7pm for most of this last week, but got home early at around 4:00 yesterday. Dillon was so excited to see Da and tell him about the BIG trucks that she got to watch that day, as our neighbors were having their entire driveway paved. He got down on the floor to play with her and just made me smile to hear the various words she would say interspersed with huge peals of laughter. She has figured out that for as much fun as it is to read books with Da, he makes a pretty awesome jungle gym as well.

Speaking of jungle gyms, we met another friend and her little boy at a local park yesterday afternoon. It was empty except for us, so we pretty much had the run of the place. There is some jungle gym equipment with a couple of smaller slides and one of those bigger spiral slides. I have taken Dillon down the bigger one on my lap several times. Yesterday she headed down it before she sat on my lap. I asked her if she wanted to go by herself, which was met with her typical enthusiastic "Yeah!" I told her to go ahead, so she did. She doesn't quite get the idea that you have to lift your feet, so it was a pretty slow descent, followed closely by me. Arrival at the bottom was met with an immediate "More, More!!" My friend thought it was great that she was so daring, as her son would have nothing to do with the slide. Umm, sure. Remind me of that when we are in the ER having a post daredevil stunt gash stitched up! No, really, she's pretty cautious in trying new things and mostly does so only after I've encouraged her or shown her how to do something.

Now if we can just keep it that way when she's 16 and learning to drive!

Hiking with Ginger and Ben 

My little helper bee

And what a helper she is! I've taken on the job of stripping the wallpaper off our dining room walls. Excuse me, the flowery, 1980's wallpaper in our dining room. It is a long, slow process at baseline, but with Dillon helping it is almost painful how long this is going to take to complete! She likes to help by taking my scraper away from me so she can scrape on the wall, and by taking all the little pieces of paper that I've pulled off and putting them in a small container that she then carries around the house scattering said pieces of paper. She likes to help pull pieces of paper off, but them wants them back up there once they are off. She doesn't like that momma's attention is on something else, so she wants to sit in my lap during much of this process. Oh well, I just accept that it will take a while and let her help me.

Dillon's gotten really into giving hugs over the last few days. She is so sweet! She will just lay her head over on your shoulder and pat you on the back. She's also getting a little more liberal with her kisses and has actually acted like she is giving us one. The kisses are still several feet away, but hey,that's an improvement!

Her vocabulary just amazes me. She must add a couple of new words a day and is now putting 2 words together. She has said "Da's shoe," "Big truck," "Bye truck,"and "Baby duck." Sometimes she'll rattle off something that you just know must be deep and profound but just sounds like total gibberish. But the look on her face tells you it isn't gibberish and if you were smart you'd write down what she said because it's important.

Come to think of it, her daddy does the same thing, especially at the end of the day! :)

My little helper bee

Smiles at the DMV?!

I actually saw people smiling at the DMV today- not the employees, but the customers! Why were we there? Well, in NH you get a temporary license, then 6 months later you get your permanent one. I truly have no idea why, nor do I really care enough to research it. Anyway, I received my permanent one in the mail several months back, but apparently threw it away instead of my temporary one. So, there we were at the DMV to get a duplicate. Since ours is only open 3 days per week, there was, of course, a line. Dillon, of course, was only happy being held for a few minutes before she wanted down. Fortuately, there was a little room for her to roam without really getting into anything. She thought the divider ropes were pretty cool and that stepping over them was even cooler. Luckily, the posts were too heavy for her to really move, so she lost interest in those pretty quickly. Being the little social butterfly that she is, she would go to different people that caught her eye and say hi to them or point to their shoes. She was truly quite charming and most everyone smiled at her with several people speaking to her. Only once was someone clueless enough to hold the door open while doing something else so that I had to intercede before she made it out the door. Remind me not to ask that particular teenaged girl to babysit!

Yesterday we went to the house of one of our friends whose baby was born at 32 1/2 weeks. He's now 4 weeks old, at home and doing great. I took lunch and dinner over to Melanie & Andy (our friends) since they've been eating chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner. I held the baby so she could eat, then got him to sleep while she showered uninterrupted (what an absolute luxury!). Dillon loved seeing the baby & was really good with him. She was very gentle and with some direction stuck to only touching his back, arms and legs. She actually was much more enthralled with the 3 cats that they have. They were much more fun to touch- plus they just moved a lot more! She also got to see more babies at this morning's La Leche League meeting. They are fun, but all those new toys there-- now THAT's fun! There were a couple of times that we had to run interference between Dillon & another toddler, but I have to give it to her- she'll hold her own for the most part, even against kids older than her.

The new stuff over the past few days includes: trying to repeat lots of the words I say to her. I don't even think I could count all her words now. "Tiger" is pretty loud and clear as she has gotten to watch one on her Baby Einstein "World Animals" video. She has a new tooth & I think is getting another one. She is starting to really do the pretend playing. She wants her baby to get a new diaper on each time she does, she wants to use the spoon to feed the baby, she wants it to ride around in the backpack like she does. It's really fun to start seeing not only this element of her personality, but the beginnings of her imagination as well.

Billings Farm- try #2

Yesterday we went to Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, VT It is this beautiful old farm that operates out of an 1890's farmhouse. They have a working dairy farm and tons of educational programs. Yesterday they had an antique tractor show including the one that Dillon is on in the picture. She loved it! She kept laughing and kicking her feet :-) We also got to see cows and calves, sheep, and horses. They had chickens too, but we never saw them. She had lots of fun mooing at the cows. We met up with a friend of mine, her husband and little boy there. Her little boy is 4 months younger (and probably 2 inches taller) than Dillon. He & Dillon had a great time grinning at one another and playing in the pieces of tiny gravel they had there. They kept passing rocks back and forth in between trying to eat them. Why we had to pay to get into somewhere for playing with rocks to be entertaining is beyond me, but hey, she had a good time, so it was worth it! I even got to hear bits and pieces of some of the educational programs, like about some of the heirloom vegetables that they grow there and about the dairying process. We left when it started to rain and got to enjoy Dillon telling us all about what she saw at the farm on the ride home. Of course it was more like long strings of nonsensical sounds interspersed with several moos and baaaas, but we got the idea- she liked seeing the animals.

I'm sensing a round of "Old MacDonald" coming on.......

Billings Farm

Farmer Dillon

OK- I just typed out a long post to go with this and it erased it. Now I'm too tired, so I'll have to post it tomorrow. Sorry!!

Imitation

I think that the fact of learning by imitation is something I knew but didn't realize just how entertaining it would be- at least while they are imitating one of your more desirable traits! Last night, Dillon picked up one of her babies, then sat in the floor rocking back and forth saying "rocka rocka rocka" just as I have done to her. As far as she's concerned, that's what you do with babies- you carry them around and rock them, because that's been her experience. She also feeds her babies with a spoon and her sippy cup. It never ceases to amaze me the things she picks to imitate- like blowing her nose after she saw me do it or opening her mouth wide to show me she doesn't have any of Satchmo's food in it, because that's what I show her to do. Of course it only works once she's already shallowed the food & it isn't there anymore, but that's beside the point.

We went to the pool on Tuesday. It was a beautiful day and we went with another couple of ladies with toddlers, though it wasn't like we got to visit much as we mostly spoke in passing while chasing each of our respective children. Dillon absolutely loved the water this time and was overjoyed when I let her "jump" into the water from the side as she saw the bigger kids doing. She would actually just sit on the side and lean toward my hands which were just a couple of inches away. I'd dip her in the water to her waist and then lift her into the air during which time she would kick wildly and laugh. There were a couple of older kids that handed her a little toy so she could throw it in the water for them to try to catch. There was, of course, a lot of splashing and laughing, so she had a ball. Now if we could just have a few more days like that in the 3 weeks or so the pool is still open, that would be great. Today is supposed to be a high of 69 and raining, so the pool looks like a no-go today.

I just tried letting her play with paint by putting her in her high chair, putting a little bit of paint down on a piece of paper and giving her a small paintbrush. The entertainment value of that: approximately 3 minutes before she was standing in the chair saying "GO" loudly and decisively. The small piece of tape holding the paper in place got almost that much mileage with a lot less set up and clean up time. What's interesting about that is that I used to get all these paintings from the daycare when she was there with reports that she loved it. Not sure if they just had lower expectations of how long it would be entertaining or if they misinterpreted her signals of what she found interesting. Of course at that point she wasn't quite so clear as to stand and say "go."

I see the sun! Maybe there's hope for a beautiful summer day afterall.........

Ready to go swimming! 

A casualty of Dillon's diaper fascination 

Chatterbox

Dave and I were trying to figure out how many words Dillon has right now. The guestimate was 50. Then we actually started putting them down on paper. We came up with 77 words! Not all of those are understandable by anyone other than us (or me), but they are all deliberate, consistent sounds with deliberate, consistent intent. I had thoughts of listing them all but since it took 45 minutes to get her to go to sleep, I'm too tired to list that many words. She seems to add new ones each day, though. Over the last couple of days it has been "kick," "off" and "pull." She likes to run through many of her favorite words while I am rocking and nursing her to sleep. Methinks its a clever ploy to keep herself awake...hmmm......

We went to a picnic at the home of the anesthesia department chair yesterday. He throws this big picnic each year at his beautiful 100+ year old home on the Connecticut River. It was really a lot of fun and Dillon had a great time roaming around in all the wide open space. There were several big dogs there that she was pretty excited about until one of them came and stole food out of her hand and knocked her down. I don't think this poor dog knew what happened-- all of the sudden this small person is crying loudly and there are about 3 people yelling at it to get away. I'm sure whatever small bite of food it scored was not worth all that. She was a little freaked out by the dogs after that, but did eventually get to where she wanted to pet one of them that was lying down.

We did get to go swimming the other day. The pool is really nice! It starts at no depth at all and very gently slopes to 4 feet, but over a pretty good distance. Most of the bigger kids that can swim either stay in the other regular sized pool or in the deeper part of the kiddie pool, so it's a pretty safe place for little ones that don't swim. She wasn't sure about it at first and would only stand in the water for a few seconds before she wanted out. So we'd walk around and she would want to try it again. She got to where she would get in to about waist deep. She seemed to have good time. It's supposed to be pretty warm over the next several days, so I'd really like to take her again. Besides, I met someone at the picnic that has a son that just a month older. She & I had a great time chatting and it would be a good excuse to get together again.

I have pictures to post but it doesn't seem to want to work tonight. I"ll try to get it to tomorrow. It's time for bed.

Bup

That's her word for diaper.  She has now started telling me when she has pooped.  Sometimes she tells me that she has peed, but not as consistently.  She is also obsessing over the "diapers" on her babies.  She has several teddy bears and dolls that have little bloomers on them.  She has to pull all of them down,bring them to me and tells me "bup" over and over.  Then she moves on to something else and drops the baby, so we have all these little creatures with bare butts shining all over the floor!  Talk about a full moon!

We dropped some books for donation off at the library on Wednesday.  She told the librarian "thank you" in repsonse to her expression of thanks, then "Bye byeee" as we were leaving.  I think that's the first time she's put those together.  The librarian thought it was pretty cute, too.  Of course, how could you not?

It's supposed to be warm and sunny today, though it doesn't look too promising at 65 degrees and cloudy at the moment.  This has been a miserable summer, weather-wise.  There have been several days that the high for the day was below 70 with heavy clouds and rain.  Really, it's kind of depressing knowing that it is only a matter of a couple of months before it starts getting genuinely cold.  It's been like we aren't going to have a good dose of warm weather to help out mentally.  I can't believe there have been days in July that I've been comfortable wearing long sleeves.  Anyway, I'm hoping this afternoon we can go out to the community pool. They are supposed to have a pretty good kiddie area.

New words over the last couple days:  pig and knee and eat.  I sing Old MacDonald to her as entertainment during diaper changes.  I always ask her what animal Old MacDonald has and the day before yesterday she started acually saying pig.  She said knee as I was tickling her knee and she thought it was funny.  She's finally getting the concept of eating and actually asks to on occasion.  Of course the best to hope for is a few bites at a time, but at least she's doing that a few times a day instead of a few times a week!  The most popular words lately are "up" and "stuck."  Anytime she wants to see what is going on higher than she can see, it's "UP!" and anytime something doesn't happen as easily as she thinks they should, it's "STUCK!"  Of course "truck" is still high on the list as they are still out there working. 

 

 

Trucks!

The city has been doing construction on our road since mid-May.  Dillon is absolutely fascinated with all the machinery.  Truth be known, Dave & I are too, we just don't go running to look out the window each time we hear one coming.  Whenever she hears one, she says "Truck!" while doing her truck sign and runs to get on the couch so she can look out the window.  It's provided many a convenient distraction whenever she's headed toward something she shouldn't be in.  Today they were working on our driveway.  As part of the construction company's contract, they have to provide so much paving on all the driveways.  We are getting about 30 feet of ours done.  Dillon LOVED watching the trucks in her own driveway.  She even carried her truck book around for a while this evening talking about the trucks.  We should all be so easy to entertain!

A couple of days ago, I asked "Where's Dillon?" in that lets-play-peekaboo voice.  Instead of hiding her face, she very joyfully pointed to herself and grinned the biggest grin she could possibly muster.  Thinking it was a fluke, I asked again and she did the same thing again.  It's official- she knows her name!

A friend came over briefly today and as she was leaving, she blew Dillon a kiss.  You could see the lightbulb go on for Dillon- she immediately blew a kiss back.  Then Da got home and he got a kiss blown at him.  Still won't outright give us a kiss, but she'll blow them our way.  It's a start, I guess.

Backpack! 

New words

I can wear dad's clothes (from 25 years ago)! 

Dillon found a box of Dave's old clothes and pulled this shirt out (along with all the rest of them).  She was quite insistent she get to wear this one and was fascinated by the stars on the sleeves.  She sat in the floor for several minutes saying "star.....star....star" pointing to each one of them.  Who knew 25 year old clothing could be educational?

She is saying new words at an amazing rate!  The shirt prompted "star, " though she already had a sign for it.  We were sitting outside on the step and she very clearly proclaimed "step!"  She almost fell down inside and declared "whoa!" as I always do when she almost falls.  Last night Satchmo was whining and Dave said "Satchmo, PLEASE."  Dillon further emphasized the need for him to be quiet by reinterating "PEES!!"  We're just glad that's the word she chose to pick up :) She has also christened Satchmo with a name-- "gooboy."  It comes from the praise he gets each time he is willing to sit in one of our laps ("ap")  and let her pet him. Pretty cute.

The backpack is one of her favorite items and she will repeat "bapac" over and over until she gets to ride in it.  Last night she decided she wanted one of her babies to ride in it, so she put baby in it, then sat down and buckled the waist strap around her waist.  Unfortunately, she couln't get it unbuckled and would sit there crying "STUCK!!!" until one of us would undo it for her.  Then, of course, the cycle would start again. 

Amazing kid, this one is!

 

Look at my new dress Mimi sent me! 

Yes, I do realize the picture is sideways.  I'm just proud that I figured out how to post it.  I'll figure out how to turn the pictures another time.  This was taken last week.

The big happy event of the last couple of days is that Dillon has 2 new teeth.  They are the teeth on either side of her top 2 front teeth and they are coming in at the same time as the 2 front ones did.  She's over 17 months old- it's about time she got some teeth!

The big not-so-happy event of the last couple of days is that we have to find new child care yet again.   It's been pretty stressful for us trying to figure out what to do.  Really, I just want to stay home with her full-time, but the cost of living is so high here that I really need to continue working the 2 days a week I've been working.  We have a couple of possibilities but nothing has come together yet. 

Back to the happier topic of the cute things that Dillon does.  Yesterday she put one of her teddy bears in a laundry basket, pulled it around for a few minutes, then signed to me that the baby was sleeping.  I was amazed that she was able to put all that together! Today we went to our local science museum where she got to play in their outdoor water display.  It did cool things like bubble and spray and turn on and off randomly.  She had a blast and I had a blast watching her!  She, of course, was soaking wet by the time we left, but who cares-clothes dry. 

She has a couple of new words- "glove" in reference to the gardening gloves that she keeps stealing from me as I am trying to use them.  Her other word is "Music," which sounds remarkably similar to "stick," except that she either claps while she is saying it (the sign she made up for it) or points to the stereo and claps while saying it.  I LOVE the sign language.  My goodness does it make life easier!

Kisses

Dillon's really into giving kisses-- to everyone but Mom & Dad.  She kisses her "babies," she kisses the pictures in her books, she even tries to kiss Satchmo (which goes over like a lead balloon!).  It's pretty cute.  She's also into saying "Yeah!" to most questions.  "Dillon, do you want to have your diaper changed?"  "Yeah!"  At which point she'll start running the other direction so you can't actually change the diaper she so whileheartedly agreed to having changed.  At least she isn't screaming "NO!"
 
We spent a little time outside today, looking over the plants I worked hard on getting into the ground yesterday.  I was marveling at how much they had perked up and were looking pretty good, when Dillon decided to "weed" them for me as she has seen me doing several times.  It would be better if she'd actually pick weeds vs. the plants we paid money for!
 
Dave & I got to go to dinner by ourselves tonight, which was really nice.  Courtney, who works at the daycare Dillon went to for a while came to babysit for us.  Dillon & Courtney are big buddies & she has a great time when Courtney comes over.  Probably even Courtney got kisses from her, but still none for Mom & Dad. 
 
New words for the day:  Stuck and Gentle. 
  


 

17 months and 1 day

Dillon turned 17 months old yesterday.  She is just so much fun!  Today, my friend Denni's little boy Cyrus came over this morning.  He is 5 weeks younger than Dillon.  They are so funny to watch because they chase one another around and just laugh at one another for no apparent reason.  There's also the element of learning to share, but that's just part of life.  Both of them are such social kids that they really do get along well. 
 
After Cyrus left, we ran some errands- one of which was to get a pair of sandals from Payless Shoes.  That was like a little piece of heaven for the kid whose first word was "shoes!"  Can't tell you how much time I spent finding the box that a shoe came out of.  At least I only had to look so high :)
 
She is learning body parts.  She has back, toes and nose down really well, and is learning to point and say "eye"  Repeatedly, actually, in imitation of me pretending to poke myself in the eye to make her laugh.  Oh,well. I don't mind looking like an idiot to make her laugh- and teach her something as well!  She also knows hair and hand and foot, but hasn't said them yet.
 
Right now she is joyfully running around naked with a cracker in her hand.  Satchmo, of course, is not far behind.   As far as she's concerned, life really doesn't get much better than that!