Stuff!
Much to her delight, Squirt has recently experienced an influx of stuff. My folks visited with armloads of presents (from them plus an aunt and uncle), a coworker gave Squirt presents, another friend gave her a bag full of goodies (belated birthday present)... The house is officially filled with all manner of brightly colored, noisy, squishy thingamajigs. One must be careful when walking through the house at night, lest one awaken one of the noisey doodads. Woe to whoever awakens a noisy doodad in the middle of the night! But Squirt loves this. And, as much as I complain about it, I love watching her play. She rocks and feeds her new baby doll with her new little fake bottle, kisses her stuffed animals on their noses, and proudly carries around her other little stuff in her new little purse. She loves stacking stuff on top of other stuff and figuring out which stuff is suitable for petting a cat (which is a very tricky endeavor). Thanks to the noisy toys with buttons, she now has a thing for buttons in general and pushes every single button (or anything that even looks like a button) that she finds, which means she turns off the computer. A lot. It's also very dangerous to let her near my phone. She's already deleted a couple of pictures and, I'm not entirely sure, but I think she may have called Copenhagen last night...
Talking
An area of frustration for me (and I realize it shouldn't be) has been this whole language development thing. Yes, yes, I know babies all develop at their own pace and that it's not at all uncommon for two-year olds+ to be running around with only a couple of words. But I'm feeling the pressure! It seems like most of Squirt's little comrades are babbling away - car, dog, up... Nothing fancy, but enough to make a point. Squirt doesn't have much. Mama, dada, and, of course, Radar have been mostly it (though she calls any small, furry animal "Radar," much to the other cat's annoyance). Mostly she is quiet, listening. I wrongly assumed that, because she didn't say them, she didn't understand them. But, recently, she has been proving me wrongwrongwrong. I'm continually amazed at how much she understands. Heck, she understands words I don't recall ever saying to her. It's impressive... We concluded that she knows the words, she's just not ready to start using them. We have a theory that once she starts the floodgates will open. Last night (kinda) proved that theory. We were playing in the back yard and a plane flew overhead. She usually points and waves. Last night she pointed and, clear as an adorable little bell, proclaimed, "It's a car!" Whaaaa??? "No, Squirt, it's a plane." She giggled at me and gave me her "silly momma" look, reiterating, "It's a CAR." My mistake...
Monkey see...
Squirt is really big on mimicking Daddy and me right now. This is super! She now wipes her own snotty face, throws away trash (and everything else if we're not careful), and brushes her own teeth (of which she now has eight, plus one demonic molar starting to poke through). She sometimes successfully puts on her own shirts, though other times insists on trying to pull her pants on as a shirt... (Who am I to dictate her fashion? She might be onto something.) She's starting to get pretty good at feeding herself with utinsels, too, which will be really nice once mastered. This recent mimicry has also been a lot of fun, as I discovered recently when trying to sneak in a workout... Often, when I need to work out and she's in a very hands-on mood, I'll just work out with her (baby deck squats = dooooom). But this time she was pretty content to play next to me as I worked out, so I grabbed my kettlebell and went to town. I started doing squats and she stopped what she was doing and gave me a quizzical look. I smiled, talked to her, and counted out my reps. She had a sudden flash of inspiration, grabbed a fluffy piece of her aforementioned stuff, walked next to me, and started doing squats right along with me (and, I might add, with far better form and range of motion). That was just super fun. Then, as I was doing some flutter kicks (evil, evil things, especially when you've had abdominal surgery that pretty much destroys your core srength and stability), she pointedly laid down next to me and started kicking her legs, squealing away. The kid has some serious abs under that cute little baby belly (which, by the way, she is more than happy to show just about anyone upon meeting - "Hi, nice to meet you, here's my bellyyyyy")! Finally, the planks... She ambled off to play with her stuff and left me in peace to do some planks (for that pregnancy and surgically ravaged belly o' mine). There I am, perfect form, quietly counting out the seconds until I can collapse and cry, when Squirt marches up to me and stands right in front of me. She grabs my head and pulls it up so I look at her and plants a giant kiss on my face. She then pushes my head back down, pats it, and goes back about her very important business.
She really gets into it when she washes her hands...
Running cherrily through the house with her little purse (and momma's wine key).
(Sorry it's blurry, she won't stand still...)
Feeding her babies.
Chillin' in her trailer on set and getting ready for her close-up.
Baby Squirt does her own stunt work (practicing at home).
As always, loving bath time!
Figuring out how to use the spray gun to fill her pool.
(Yes, she figured it out. And yes, she sprayed Momma.)
What? It was hot!
