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