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!