20 Months

I'm blaming my blog death on the fact that I no longer have a laptop and my monitor often gets appropriated by the company for jobs and doesn't return. However, now I have a monitor of my own (that will by the name of my Virginia Woolf inspired book) and maybe I will blog from time to time.

So first of all, I think I should say that CB is 20 months old now, which is NUTSO. I was just looking over the post from 15 months and it is insane how much things have changed since then. Most significantly, when I last wrote about her, she had about seven words that she said regularly. Seven.

I have officially lost count of the number of words she says now. I will attempt to mention categories instead.

1. She is OBSESSED with animals (which is a word she says) and knows the names and sounds of SO MANY, which she can also identify by sight. It's a really fun game to say, "Hey, can you be a ____________?" and then throw out an animal. She's really good at the names and sounds of cows, kitties, doggies, fish, owls, snakes, bats (bats don't make a sound, but they do wiggle their fingers at you - same with spiders and butterflies or "bu-bies", but they don't say "bat bat" while they do it), giraffes (which stick out their tongues), foxes (ring-ding-ding, of course) horses, elephants (el-poot), lions, tigers, bears, dinosaurs, ducks, and more that I'm not remember. She also likes to say hippo, piggie and octopus (oc-poos) and calls monkeys, frogs and chickens by their sounds (ee-ees, ribbits and bok boks, respectively). We recently took her to the zoo and it was so fun to see how into it she was. She told us what things were and what they said and requested animals. (I assume when she roared it was because she wanted to see the tiger.) 
2. She knows most of her body parts - all of her (and your) face, plus arms, hands, legs, feet, belly button, and armpit. (Daddy taught her that one.) If you ask where her armpit is she will show you - and then she will expect to be tickled. 
3. She knows how to say and deliver hugs and kisses, which is fun, especially now that they aren't open mouth kisses. 
4. She knows meals (breakfast, snack and dinner, or befuss, nack and nin-ner) and her favorite foods (cheese, bread, yogurt, cracker, cookie, cupcake, milk, juice and water) and she requests those things often. She'll also accept almost anything if you tell her she can dip it. 
5. She's really interested in the potty and will tell me when she's about to poop ("Stinky?") but I don't feel at all like we were ready to do the potty training thing, so I'm just encouraging her to be interested and to tell me in the hopes that it will help things along later. She also likes the bath and loves "buddles" (bubbles) in her tub.  
6. She loves babies and knows her baby cousin by name. She knows a lot of her cousins, but she's especially enamored with Grandma ("Mama") and Grandpa ("Papa") and Maggie, Nancy ("Nana") and Samantha ("Manna"). She also recently started calling me Mommy in addition to the "Mom" that I'd been getting for a few months now. She can say her own name, but she pronounces is "Wadda." Useful to all of you who don't know her real name, I know.

After a month and a half of being very unsure of nursery, a couple of weeks ago CB decided it was the bees knees. She goes running toward the door as soon as sacrament meeting is over, anxious for her "nack" and toys, especially the "boks" (blocks) and "puddles" (puzzles).

She is at the climbing stage, which is frightening. She loves blocks and crayons and puzzles, and she's starting to play more imaginatively with stuffed animals and other toys. She'll make things "nance" (dance) and eat dinner, which is pretty adorable.  (She LOVES to dance and asks for music to dance to at least a couple of times a day, which is really delightful. She's kind of a great dancer. We're especially fond of her "Elvis hips" move.)

Here are a few pictures of her in recent months (I am so behind on my picture uploads.) Most of them are her enjoying her room in our new apartment.

She doesn't need glasses, but she figured her bear didn't either.

Babyface Long. Wanted for coloring on the walls in three rooms. 

Master of hiding, isn't she?

She really loves cuddling her babies. 

Coloring is one of her favorite things right now, although I keep taking pencils and pens away from her because the temptation to chew off the eraser or draw on herself is too strong. 

CB showing off her newest shirt. She really likes butterflies, so she's a fan. ;)