Cute Stories About the Pumpkin

Oh my goodness... I miss ALL those things too! And I take mine back. What I miss the MOST is being able to have sex with my husband anytime, anywhere. Someday, we'll have morning sex again. Someday...

Anywho...

Thanks for all your well-wishing for the Pumpkin. She seems to be fine except a runny nose, and the snot is clear. She was in a great mood all day yesterday, except when we had to wipe her nose. So we are thinking she's not really sick. And last night (I know I'm jinxing it), she slept straight through until just after 6:00!! It was great! So she's back at my mom's today.

I think I'm going to counter-balance the recent posts on how hard having a baby can be and what I/we miss with some cute little stories about the Pumpkin's latest achievements. I really would go through it all again and give up all those things, because she is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me.

But let me start with a scary story about a big realization I had... it's very frightening!!

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In church on Easter Sunday, we sat in the back row to be near the door close to the nursery/daycare. Right in front of us was a family with a 2 year old and a 2 month old. 2 months old. He still had a bit of that newborn look. He was sooooo small and beautiful. And...

I get it. I get how seeing a little bitty baby makes you want another. I see how you can remember how tough those times were, but still feel the draw to want one, the urge to hold one and even make another one of your own. I used to see babies and just think, yeah they are cute, but they are more fun when they are older. Seeing that 2 month old... I just get it.

And that is sooooo scary!

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The Pumpkin has had a language explosion lately. She keeps picking up on all sorts of words, repeating things we say and saying them again later. Some examples:

-When she hands you something, she says "ahn koo" (thank you).
-When she sees the dog, not only does she say "dahdee" (doggie) and sometimes pat her leg (sign language for dog), but she will often say "gah gahr" (good girl).
-When she sees any lion, she goes "arrrr" (roar) without any prompting. She also does the "brrr" noises for elephants with her arm raised by her face (for the trunk) without prompting.
-When I read her Good Night, Gorilla (we love this book), she does the animals noises for a bunch of them when I turn the page. For gorilla, she goes "oo oo" and bounces up and down.

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She can follow some simple directions. I can ask her where her toy bird is and tell her to bring it to me, and she will look around, find it, go get it and bring it over to me, saying "bur" (bird).

Yesterday morning, we did this, and after she brought it to me I tossed it in a basket on the other side of the room. When I asked her a little while later where the bird was, she went over to where she had found it earlier. It had been in front of her dresser. It was no longer there, but she got down on her hands and knees and peered under the dresser!!! She had never done anything like that before!

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Here's another story from yesterday. To try to distract her so I could make her breakfast, I put on the Baby Signing Time DVD, which sometimes kind of holds her attention for 5 or 10 minutes. To start her off, I sat on the floor with her in my lap. I did the signs along with the DVD, and this time I even moved her hands to some of the signs, like for "eat" (I've also used the sign for eat for months now).

Later, when we were reading and playing with books, she handed me The Very Hungry Caterpiller. I said something like, "Wow, look at all the food he is eating." She looked up at me and said "eet" while signing eat! The first time she's said and signed it!

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And my favorite thing lately... The Pumpkin will toddle up to me or Londo where ever we are, hand us a book saying "boh" and then climb into our laps, turn around, and sit down so we can read her a book. This is the most precious thing ever!

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It's obvious to those around her regularly that she's made another developmental leap forward. She is doing things that she simply wasn't capable of understanding before. It's just amazing to me how much she's learned in the past year. She's like a little person now. My heart just swells with love and pride.