Fumk! Fumk!

Yesterday Shoshanna and I went to the library and brought home a CD of toddler songs... Since dinnertime last night, she has been insisting on listening to "Where is Thumbkin?" on repeat. "Fumk! Fumk!" and she tries to wiggle her little thumbs like we do when we're singing along with the CD. If you try to listen to any other song, she yells at you, "Fumk! Fumk!"

Grammy's pictures from Shoshanna's trip to Camp Grandma

Fun with the Internet

What celebrities does Shoshanna look like? See for yourself!

Pedestrian Girl

It has long been a normal occurrence for Shoshanna to decide halfway through a walk that she wants out of her stroller or wagon. Usually, her being out has resulted in lots of investigating sticks and mud and rocks and more often than not, a fight about either being carried or going back in her stroller.

In the past couple of days, however, Shoshanna has discovered the joys of actually WALKING on walks. Monday night she insisted that she wanted out of her stroller and then proceeded to push it (with us helping steer, when she would let us) for something like three blocks. Last night, she pulled her wagon (while walking backwards) for the better part of a block and then pushed it from behind for another 2.5 or so. She even crossed the street with it! We were very impressed, and she was terribly proud of herself.

Home from Grammy's House

Shoshanna is home from 9 days at Grammy & Grampa's house while Mama and Daddy went on vacation. A great time was had by all, despite S coming down with a slight bug mid-week. She hasn't forgiven us our abandonment yet, though, and is showing her displeasure by being a right terror - she didn't misbehave at G&G's house until I showed up, at which point she commenced climbing on things she knows she's not supposed to climb, etc. And now that we're home, she's being very clingy and having trouble going to sleep by herself - I had to hold her until she was very nearly asleep for her nap yesterday (at the same time reassuring her that I wouldn't go away while she was sleping), and she wasn't too happy about going to bed last night, either, despite being completely exhausted. I'm hoping that her return to daycare today will help in that regard, but we'll see.

Grammy promises pictures as soon as the semester gets set on its right and proper course. If you want to see what Mama and Daddy were up to on our vacation, there are pictures here.

Should we be proud or mortified?

Shoshanna is truly a baby of the 21st century. We have two Google tshirts running around our collective wardrobe, and when she's pointed to the logos on them we've said "Google!" and she's quite obligingly repeated, "dooduh!" This evening, as Matthew was taking her upstairs to bed, she pointed to his shirt (which was a Google shirt) and proudly declared "dooduh!"

That's right. "Google" is part of my almost-2-year-old's vocabulary.

A trip to the zoo

Shoshanna and I went to the zoo before. We'd been twice before (once with each set of grandparents), but this was the first time that she REALLY seemed to engage with the experience of seeing the animals. We saw just about everybody in the zoo - elephants, tropical birds, rhinos, giraffes. Maybe I'm projecting, but I think Shoshanna liked the monkeys the best. It helped that the macaques were being very rambunctious, AND there were a number of baby monkeys.

Shoshanna was very funny about telling me what she wanted to do at the zoo. She didn't really want to walk much (of course, she hadn't napped particularly well, so she might just have been tired), but she would tell me when she wanted up so she could see different animals, and she would say and sign "done" when she'd had enough of a particular location. And, most interestingly, suddenly she's scared of certain animals. The gorillas I can understand, and she was certainly scared of them when the came and sat right by the glass (she got super-clingy and wanted back into her stroller posthaste), but the ittybitty lizard? She wasn't a big fan of him, either, when he was trotting along the glass roughly a foot from her face.

All in all, it was a good way to spend a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

I didn't see it, but...

Matthew reports that when we were at the pool yesterday, Shoshanna was playing next to another toddler (about her same age). She had a toy train, he had a toy bus. He really wanted the train, but Shoshanna wasn't giving it up for anything. So she was pushing the train around saying "Beepbeep!" (which she says for any moving vehicle), and he was next to her, eyeing the train but pushing the bus, and saying "Choochoo!"

No time...

See, the problem with saying "I'll post more details later" is that I never get around to it. So, vacation highlights in bulleted list form:

• Grownups. Shoshanna loves having 10 grownups all to herself. More if you count the staff who totally doted on her. She especially loves her Grandpa, who she calls "Ampa!" She gets very annoyed when she says "Hi, Ampa!" and he doesn't respond immediately.
  
  
  
  
• Boats. Shoshanna went for her first boat ride. She liked it. The last day that we were there, she demanded another boat ride, so we put a lifejacket (Boh dat! - boat jacket) on her and put her in a kayak sitting on the beach. Then she demanded a paddle.
  
  
  
• Beaches. Beaches are good for digging, lakes are good for wading in. Wet sand is good for smearing all over yourself. Enough said.
  
• The play room. Lots and lots of toys, including a really awesome play kitchen and a bus that sang "The Wheels on the Bus".
  
• The playground. We spent lots of time going "whee" and "dye-ing" (driving).
  
  
  
  
  
  
• New words... I can't even remember all of them. Boat, Shoshanna (usually she just says "Shanna"), driving, E-bah (Emily). And SENTENCES! "I see da ball" when pointing to the buoys outlining the swimming area. "I wah Dada." "I see da wawa" (I see the flowers) when grabbing her flowered shorts. And on and on.
  

So that was vacation in a nutshell.

Oh, and we decided today that the way to tell if the toddler has had a good day is if she passes out in the stroller during the after-dinner walk. We spent 3 1/2 hours at the pool this afternoon swimming, jumping into both the wading pool and the big pool, dancing to the live entertainment, and digging in the sandbox. Came home, had dinner, and Shoshanna didn't last through the whole after-dinner walk.