Chatty Cathy

Jellbean is starting to talk more and more these days. I love listening to her ever-expanding vocabulary.

Yesterday she started saying "rabbit" and pointing to the ears on the rabbit in a book. It was perfectly enunciated, but since I always call it a bunny, it took me a moment to figure out what she meant. It was like my brain needed to catch up to the fact that my 20 month old was talking to me!

She's using two-word sentences, and assigning possessive terms to things - so I'm "Monkey's mommy" and our cat is "Monkey's Ollie," etc.

She loves to talk! (atta girl, that's my baby!) Combine that with her love of technology and every phone call becomes an excuse for her to show off.

Yesterday we got a spate of (wonderful!) calls from family and friends to wish Monkey a happy birthday. Monkey was being a bit of a stinker, however, and by the end of the evening she simply didn't want to talk anymore.

Jellybean? No such problem. She was chatting everyone up! She regaled Uncle N with "woof woof" and "roar" and "meow" and a variety of other animal noises. Then closed with "bye bye."

After Uncle N rang off, M actually said - out loud! - "maybe we should get her a phone"....of course meaning one that doesn't work. But really, there is NO way she'd go for that.

She's totally going to need a dataplan, dad, so she can text her friends. Like OMG, unlimited texting would be gr8!

My imaginary friend

When I was little, I had an imaginary friend named "Mousie." She was, you'll be surprised to hear, a mouse. And I would pretend to be a mouse, too, and bite my cousins when they did annoying things like pile all of the cushions from the patio furniture on top of me and then sit on it. You know, since my mouth was the only thing not pinned down. But I digress about the biting...

The point is, I had an imaginary friend.

Now, recently Monkey has been obsessed with Princesses. Really, I mean obsessed. It's like my very own version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Aliens landed and replaced my child with one that only.wants.princessy.things. ALL.THE.TIME.

Princess shoes. Princess toys. Princess books. sheets. underwear. tiaras. costumes. wands. dolls. castles. toothpaste. toothbrushes. headbands. etc.......

So, when Monkey came home from school and started telling me stories about Yasmine, I figured she had read something about Jasmine (from Aladdin), and had an imginary princess friend!

Imagine my surprise when she introduced me to Yasmine....her new friend in late care at her Montessori.

Whoops. And here I thought you were just telling tales!

Happy Birthday baby

Four years ago today, Monkey was born. We celebrated yesterday with family and friends.

I love you baby!

You win some, you lose some

So this morning was a mixed bag. Monkey referred to The Girls' Room as "my room" (see! told you it was coming!). And that made me smile.

On the other hand, when I dropped the girls off at school I learned that Jellybean, aka Jaws, is biting. Again. She bit two kids yesterday because she didn't want to share (her toys, her space).

Like I said, you win some (sharing is good!), you lose some (sharing stinks, am biting in outrage!).

Sharing

Now that the girls are sharing a room, we're talking to them about sharing a lot more. In fact, we no longer call that room Jellybean's room, but affirmatively make a point of calling it "The Girls' Room" - and this title has taken hold to the point where if I ask Monkey where something is, she's more likely than not going to tell me it's "in The Girls' Room" which cracks me up. She hasn't yet said "my room" but that will come. Even though last night was a little rough, they are doing a spectacular job together.

However, we moved them into each other's space *just* as Jellybean's language skills have expanded to include the second favorite word of toddlers ("no" being first on the list, bien sur)....mine.

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE

Ah, timing. You can't make this stuff up.