Claire has been saying a lot of new things lately and picking up on more than I want her to. I guess one thing is for sure. Having a talking toddler this age really makes me aware of what I say a lot. Apparently I saw "crap" and "retarded" a lot. And I do mean A LOT because she says it "A LOT." She also says "Oh my God." So we've been trying to teach her "Oh my goodness" instead and silly for "retarded."
Oh, and she can open doors. CRAP! She just started doing this in the past week. Joshua actually showed her. I was getting sick of her getting stuck in a room and freaking out. It does take her some effort to open them and she is usually very noisy. She doesn't like going into dark rooms, so it's nice that our light switches are still too tall for her to reach. She can reach the lights at my parents house, however. So I'm a little hesitant about our next visit home.
However, she really does mind well and listen. We can have the box of tissue on the coffee table again, and she won't pull them all out! YAY! We have breakable Christmas ornaments on the trees, and she doesn't touch them! If we are out and about and there is a tree like at a store or the library, she will tell me what to do. It's pretty hilarious. "Mommy, no touching those. Those glass. You break them! No touching! Just look!!"
She has discovered the joy of gum ball machines. She calls them "Gumble Balls" which I think is funny because she can say gum ball when I correct her, but insists on gumble balls. Apparently it's much more fun.
She will say "Bless You" or "Gesundheit" when someone sneezes. When she sneezes, instead of saying "Bless Me" she says "Gesundheit me," which is just too darn cute to correct.
Apparently I say "correct" and "fine" a lot. She will say those and it just sounds really goofy coming out of her mouth.
Yesterday we saw Disney's The Princess and the Frog movie which she loved. It's the first time we've been to a movie since she was 12 months old. Ha...we saw the Batman move The Dark Night. We don't go to movies very often anymore. LOL! Anyways, the Princess in that movie is called Princess Tiana. She keeps calling her "Princess Ti-Indiana." I don't get why she is lengthening some words and making them longer than they are.
Oh my. I just jinxed myself. Saying she never touches the ornaments that have been hanging up for over 2 weeks...and she just walked in playing with a Hallmark ornament shaped like an ice cream cone pretending to eat it. "Mmm. This ice cream cone so delicious." I'm like crap...can't write about anything...dang kids will be sure to prove you wrong. Can she read my mind? HOW DID SHE KNOW. She says stuff tastes "delicious" and "glorious." Josh says "glorious" a lot and it's just so funny when she says it.
And speaking of trouble, she knows when she's in trouble. This morning, she jacked a candy cane off the tree. Except I was loading the dishwasher and didn't know it. I just heard some grunting and plastic noises and I almost *knew* that it sounded like the plastic cellophane of a candy cane wrapper, but I was like totally doubting it...no. Well, sure enough, she came into the kitchen, SO SO PROUD of herself. She goes, "LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" She had broken the crook off and managed to get it out and was eating it. That requires talent. Candy cane wrappers are freaking hard to remove! I go, "Where did you get that?" and she sensed she was in trouble. So she goes, "I don't know. I don't remember." Right. So I asked her to show me and she showed me the spot on the tree where she got it off. Dang it. Yesterday we saw Santa at the mall after the movie, and she got a candy cane from him, so she made the connection. Before that she didn't "know" what a candy cane was, although she loves peppermint circle candies.
Speaking of hard candy, she loved the movie popcorn...another choking hazard, I know, but seriously...I think the advice for the age on popcorn and hotdogs is something like 6. She's got a good gag reflex. :) I just looked up some choking hazard foods. Apparently, I'm a major violator. LOL. I don't always cut up her grapes and apples anymore. I've also given her nuts. Yikes. Maybe I should cut back? Or am I just being paranoid. I know the Heimlich maneuver on toddlers. Finger sweep time... I do like this advice that NO SOLID FOOD should be given to an infant before 6 months. But people interpret this as something like the Gerber Stage 3 with "chunks." No really, solids are anything, including rice cereal and purees! Claire ate nothing before about 18 months...and I do mean nothing other than my milk. I joke that candy was her first solid. She snitched it off the table at Holly's bridal shower last Jan. and has never turned back.
Other funny/cute things that Claire says a lot now, "Hmm, let's see" and "Actually." And the questions, oh the questions, "What are we gonna do today? What're gonnna do tomorrow? Where Daddy at? It 5 o'clock now? Daddy working now? What Daddy doing at work today? We go eat lunch with Daddy today?" (we try to a couple times a month). And in the car, "Where are we? Where're going? What that? Lookie!" She loves all the Christmas decorations if it's dark out, especially inflatables. I personally would never have an inflatable, but there seem to be a lot around town. She wants to know everyone's name.
We were at the bank and she pointed at the bank teller and asked me, "What him name?" Amazing, he understood and said "My name's Mike." And she was thrilled that he understood. So she goes, "OOOH! Hi Mike! Mr. Bank Guy." I tell her people's names are whatever their jobs are. LOL. So now everytime we go to the bank, they laugh because she called him "Mr. Bank Guy." I suppose I need to work on my proper terms too, like, um, teller?
I also love the assumptions that she has started to verbalize. Like when we were fingerpainting, she goes, "Daddy want to fingerpaint." I told her Daddy was working right now and couldn't fingerpaint with us. So she goes, "Daddy have no fun." That cracked me up.
Another thing along with the washer/dryer, I've figured out that if I've moved some stuff that was on the side of the machine, she can actually start the machine after we load it. Once in awhile she doesn't want to help. She'll say something like "You can do it Mommy!" LOL! Hopefully, I'll have her fully running the laundry running through by April (yeah right...)!!!
She is exceptionally good with names/faces, as I am. Hey, I absolutely suck with math and figures, but give me a set of 150 students, and I will have all of their first/last names memorized with correct spellings, including my class that had 5 girls with the same name my last year teaching before I went on maternity leave (Katelyn, Katelynn, Catelyn, Caitlin, and Caytlin). Ahh yes, that was fun. I usually impressed the pants off of my students by knowing all their names before any other teacher, which I do like to brag about because I had 99.9% of the time had previously no other way of knowing these kids' names. Now, I will admit my math skills lack, and I always made mistakes on things like when I graded papers. So to remedy this, I told them to always double check their papers and if they found a math error, it would obviously be corrected, plus a bonus point for my mistake. OOOH. This got them to actually look at their papers instead of chucking them right in the trash. But back to Claire, she remembers everyone's name and all those dang character names from books/shows. It amazes me. And she has started asking for friends to come over and play. "I have friend come play today?" It's so cute.
Josh is watching the football game right now, and I'm hearing my fair share of "OH CRAPS" as Claire chimes in along with Daddy. Her other favorite is "Pwnt!!!" check out the meaning of that here.
As far as other developments, we've started leaving the baby gate to the stairs down. We took down the one by the TV that was blocking off all the DVDs and rock band drum set stuff. She no longer finds great joy in emptying books/DVDs off a shelf. I thought that stage would never end. She kept climbing up the back of the loveseat and over to get back there. I'd be putting laundry or something away and all of a sudden, I'd hear her beating on the drumset, so I realized she'd gotten back there. I've also started pulling out all those mother-effing outlet plug covers. I don't know why I ever put them in. She never once was interested in the outlets. Apparently it's just something you think you need, but you don't. Who knows? I'm having a boy in April. He may think it's great fun to stick things in the outlets. Ack.
Well, I better stop my form of 'productive procrastination' and start folding some dang laundry.
No comments:
Post a Comment