My new favorite phrases

The older Babykins gets, the more she busts out some cute phrases.

A few months ago, she started using these gems:

(Whenever something didn't go as planned): Oh, man.
(When she wanted to watch her video, and thought a cute approach would help her cause): How about (clap) Mary Poppins!
(If Hubbykins or I hurt ourselves): You alright there?
(Always a favorite): I love you SO much.
(Pointing to my pregnant tummy): Shhh...baby's sleeping.

Lately, though, I've been hearing Babykins parroting back things I say to her on a regular basis:

(When we give her two choices, and she's not sure she likes either one): Let's talk about this.
(When I try to hurry her along during a rambling explanation): You need to be patient when I tell you something, Mama.
(When she doesn't want to stop playing to do what I've asked of her): Just wait one minute.
(And, one of my favorites, her version of "because"): Somecause
(When I tell her not to do something, but she plans on doing it anyway): I just be careful.

If nothing else, I've learned to watch what I say around a 2 1/2 year-old...

Suck it!

Lately, Babykins has A) been teething, and B) been traveling.  This has led to increased pacifier usage, and the unfortunate tendency to chew on it.  Chewing on pacifiers ruins them, so Hubbykins started reminding her, "Don't chew it, just suck it."

Which has led to Babykins randomly pulling out her pacifier, looking at us (or whoever happens to be around) and yelling, "Suck it!"

Oops.

All Grown Up?

I've been very sad lately to notice that Babykins has started calling me "Mom."  I loved being Mama.  I was surprised when she began calling me "Mommy," but it was still very cute.  But the introduction of "Mom" has made me realize that my baby is growing up.

She's taken it one step farther with Daddykins, though.  We were at the zoo a couple days ago, and I wanted to get Hubbykins' attention to point out the baby giraffe.  I was holding Babykins, so her head was right next to my face when I called out, "Hubbykins!" (OK, I actually called his name, so if you happen to know his name, picture that.  If you don't know his name, feel free to make one up.)  He didn't hear me, so I called again, louder.  He still didn't hear, so I called one more time.

Seconds later, I hear Babykins pipe up in her high-pitched voice, calling him by name, as well.  It was cute, and, I assumed, it was a one time event.

Since then, though, whenever Babykins reallllly wants Hubbykins' attention, she looks at him hard, takes a deep breath, and calls his name.

Talk about all grown up.

Are you for real?

Babykins has long been a fan of including people in her play.  She'll often try to feed us bites of her food, and there's nothing she like more than carrying her phone from person to person so that everyone has a chance to participate in her pretend conversations.

Recently, Babykins and I were playing telephone.  When she handed me the phone, I said hello and pretended the person on the line wanted to talk to Cooper (her teddy bear).  After exclaiming that they wanted to talk to Cooper, I handed the phone back to Babykins who immediately turned, ran to Cooper, and held the phone to his ear. 

She waited a moment nodding (I imagine Cooper had sage words to impart), then brought the phone to her own ear, babbled a minute, and brought the phone back to me.  And so began her newly expanded imaginary play.

Since then Babykins has offered her food and pacifier to her baby doll, has allowed most of her stuffed animals a turn on her phone, and has even started having her doll lean against the wall in the elevator, just like she sees the grown-ups do.

These imaginary games don't hold her attention very long right now, but I can hardly wait until the day Babykins invites me to a tea party with all of her stuffed toys.

Dai Car!!

It's happened.

Babykins no longer cries when we drop her off at daycare.  Instead, the last time I dropped her off, Babykins wriggled out of my arms, ran over to the other kids, and only grudgingly stopped playing long enough to give me a hug goodbye.  In fact, the other day when I went to pick her up, she actually cried because she didn't want to stop playing with the toys!

This new development has given Hubbykins and me a huge sense of relief.

Despite knowing how much Babykins now loves daycare, though, we were still surprised last week when we asked Babykins if she wanted to go to daycare and she responded by nodding, picking up her shoes, walking to the door, and loudly shouting, "Dai car!!"

Our 15-month-old has 10 words in her command, and daycare is one of them.

Babykins has been making good use of this word.  This week as Hubbykins walked Babykins to daycare, she saw the top of the building from two blocks away.  She proceeded to spend the rest of the trip pointing at the building and repeatedly yelling, "Dai car, dai car!!"

It's been amazing to see this transformation, and one of my favorite times now comes around 7 when we tell Babykins it's time for daycare and a huge smile lights up her little face.

Thank you, Wobbler Room teachers, for giving Babykins such a wonderful place to play and grow.

I'm the Baby!

Lately Babykins has been all about the animals.  Not only does she just about jump out of her stroller with excitement when we pass a puppy, but she starts calling, "Woo, woo!" - Babykins speak for Woof, woof!  Along with puppy noises, Babykins has started saying, "Baa!"  She knows it's the sound that sheep make, but she's also convinced that goats and horses should say, "Baa," too.

With all of the excitement about animals, one of our new favorite games is naming animals in books so that Babykins can find and point to them.  Her favorite animal to find is the rooster.  She'll pick up the book, flip quickly through the pages, and frantically point to the rooster while calling, "Ca, ca!"  Short, of course, for Cockadoodledoo!

So last week we were looking at a page that had a fish, a puppy, and a baby.

"Babykins, where's the puppy?"  I asked.

Babykins pointed to the puppy and yelled, "Woo, woo!"

"Can you find the fishie?" I asked.

She pointed to the fish.

I finished up with, "Babykins, can you point to the baby?"

At which point Babykins looked up at me, gave a big smile, and proudly patted her own belly!

Top 5 Reasons Babykins is AWESOME

It seems like every time I turn around these days, Babykins is adding a new skill to her list of incredible talents.  Here, a list of the top 5 accomplishments Babykins has achieved in the last month:

5. Brushing Her Teeth: With her one year birthday looming, Babykins still only has 2 teeth.  The fact that they're both on the bottom makes chewing difficult, but gives her an adorable smile.  To get Babykins off to a good start with dental hygiene, we recently gave Babykins her own toothbrush.  Whenever Hubbykins or I brush our teeth, Babykins follows us into the bathroom, takes her toothbrush, and moves it around her mouth in a super cute imitation of brushing her teeth.  No teeth are actually getting clean, but at least she now thinks using a toothbrush is a good time.

4. Stacking Rings:  Last week, after months of basically ignoring her Ring Stacking set, Babykins sat down, picked up a green plastic ring, and placed it on the stick like she'd been doing it her whole life.  Sometimes I think she just likes to see how easy it is to make me squeal in excitement.

3. Stacking Blocks:  While stacking the rings is impressive, they at least have a stick they go on that keeps them in a pile.  Stacking blocks is a whole different story.  Knocking down block towers that Hubbykins and I build has long been one of Babykins' favorite activities.  In fact, the desire to knock down block towers is actually what first motivated Babykins to crawl.  Last week, though, Babykins turned the corner, for the first time building her own block tower.  It was only two blocks high, but it was still very impressive.  She's up to three blocks, now, and I'm sure it won't be long before our little architect is constructing replicas of the Taj Mahal.

2. Saying "Puppy":  During our trip to Canada, we stayed with friends who have two dogs.  Once Babykins got over her initial fright, she fell in love.  Since then, every time we see a dog, she flaps her arms and squeals until they're out of sight.  Since we can't have a dog, Babykins has a little, brown stuffed puppy.  If you ask her where puppy is, she'll actually look around until she finds him, then make a bee line straight for his fuzzy body and give him a big hug.  Imagine our surprise when we saw puppies on TV this weekend and, after Hubbykins and I both exclaimed, "Babykins, look at the puppies!", Babykins turned to the TV and said, "Pu...pu...pu...puppy."  I actually cried a little at that one.

1. Walking:  I know I've already blogged about Babykins walking, but over the last week she has gone from a few hesitant steps to a professional walker (granted, one that still falls a lot, but she's at the beginning of her professional walking career).  She's even figured out how to stand up without holding on to anything, making it much easier for her to get going again after a fall.  The cutest part, though, is that along with doing the adorable "baby walk" - arms in the air for balance, tottering steps, and tummy sticking out - Babykins tends to twirl her hands while she walks, supposedly to help propel herself forward.

Ah, Babykins, some days (ok, everyday) you amaze me.

Crawling!!!

For over a month now, Babykins has desperately wanted to crawl.  She could get on her hands and knees and rock back and forth.  She could even commando crawl for a few inches.  Most exciting, she could crawl backwards a fair distance.  Crawling forward, however, remained an elusive target.

All of that changed yesterday.  My old tempting trick of building a block tower for Babykins to knock down had ceased to serve as motivation (instead of trying to reach it, Babykins would just lay her head on the ground and look at me with big, sad blue eyes).  Instead, I pulled out a new toy sent by Auntie MO - the Move and Crawl Ball.  This ball, when you push the buttons, plays music, flashes lights, and rolls away from you.  If you lose interest and stop chasing it, after awhile it plays more music to re-capture your attention. 

I placed in on the floor about a foot in front of Babykins, and after her initial shock that it could play music without her help, she decided to go after it.  She got on her hands and knees, rocked back and forth, gave that ball a hard stare, and moved her knee forward!  After which, she promptly collapsed on her belly.

Never fear.  Babykins, our intrepid adventurer, continued to chase that ball, and by the evening she was crawling a foot at a time in an effort to capture it.  It was an exciting development, and one that Hubbykins captured with copious pictures. 

We're heading to Pennsylvania for Christmas this week, and all I can say is, "Look out Christmas Tree!  Here comes Babykins!"

Watch out Janis Joplin, here comes Babykins!

If you want to see a group of stay-at-home mommies get all riled up, mention that your baby said "dada" before "mama."  Yesterday, Babykins woke up from her nap and laid quietly whispering "dadadadada" the entire time I changed her diaper.  By that evening, she was saying it at full volume.  And this morning, it was the first thing she said when I picked her up from her crib.

I don't begrudge Hubbykins the"dadadas".  What I find funny, though, is that Babykins says "dada", as well as "bababa" and "wawawa", in a gravelly, "I've been smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey my whole life" kind of voice.  If Babykins knew how to sing, she could give Janis Joplin a run for her money.

I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising, though.  Babykins was born in the year of the tiger, and she's been growling and roaring since she learned how to make noise.  Our little tiger prefers a good "grrr" to a high-pitched baby noise any day.