Developments at our house, Vol. 1

Some developments at our house in the past day or so:

1. Last night, I offered M- a bottle of milk since she was trying to steal D-'s cup. She looked frustrated as she took a step back, shook her head, and then surprised herself by saying "No" in a very thoughtful way. Against my better judgment and future sanity with regards to this particular word, I praised her for speaking her mind.

This goes along with her saying "mo' " several times recently when signing for more, the dozen other words we got her to say later on last night (including "yeah", "car", "kitty", "shiny", "hurt", "sorry", [see #7 below]"dude", and "poopy"), and the ones she has been saying for awhile now (such as "daddy", "momma", the names of most of my family, "hi", "bye-bye", "doggy", "guy", "go", "wow", "uh-oh", and "nigh'-nigh' "). Unsurprisingly, I cannot get her to say any of these this morning.

2. D- has inexplicably taken to speaking in a 3-year-old's approximation of a southern accent. I would place it somewhere around Imaginary Tennessee.

3. Just as J- was finishing up changing M-'s diaper, M- suddenly flipped over, stood up, grabbed the old diaper, and ran across the room while shaking it vigorously. Was there Number 2? Oh yes, of course there was.

I never thought I'd say it, but thank god for constipation...

4. D- has decided that wearing camouflage pajamas requires him to repeatedly march with a mean face towards the TV, point at his reflection, shoot himself with screwdriver, and then fall down dead. I'm not sure where he learned this, but he may soon be joined by 20,000 more 3-year-olds seeking to put a stop to this menacing force.

5. M- discovered that tossing an aptly-named throw pillow on the floor provides her with a portable and comfy seat from which her feet only just touch the floor (if you can believe it). She also found out the painful way that on such an uneven surface, bouncing on one's bottom out of sheer joy at this discovery will cause one's head to hit the floor surprisingly hard almost as many times as one tries it.

6. I learned that a 1-year-old will actually struggle to find her brother hiding under a blanket right where he was sitting for the past half an hour, even when said brother is giggling uncontrollably. (She eventually found him, but only after walking around for several minutes calling him with her hands turned up in a "Where on Earth did he go?!" posture.)

7. J- learned that you never tell a baby she can't have the phone back immediately after hanging up on her aunt, because that baby will be bound by Baby Law to shriek once loudly and then head butt you in the mouth at full force.

Note: Here are the other volumes.