Tick, tock

Time flies.

Animalia is looking more like a little kid than a big baby. Ask her if she's a big girl though, and she'll say no, that she's a big baby. She talks more every day, says several word sentences. This morning she woke up to the sounds of the garbage truck and said, "No, no, Daht. Stop making noise with the garbage truck." No lie. Animalia is a conversationalist.

She's a relatively nice baby. When other adults or big kids are around, she shows her toys, makes animal sounds, and dances for them. She's an excellent hostess. When there are other babies around, she gets shy sometimes, but will quietly correct them when they've done something wrong. A few days ago, she was at a play group and a boy hit her on the forehead with a block. She told him no, then told him to be nice. She made a frowny face though, almost like she was going to cry, but it seemed more like her feelings were hurt than she was physically hurt.

She makes up words. We think. Her speech is pretty understandable, but occasionally she repeats sounds that she likes or attaches sounds to words. For example, Nanani, nanana, nanata all mean Nana. Daddypoo, Dada Da, Dada La all mean Daht. Also, recently when she accomplishes something, she'll say Ta-Da! She also says Geez Louise! And when you ask her if she wants a plátano, she'll say, "¡plata-sí!"

She makes up jokes. Like doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider with her toes. Or with her doll's toes. Or with her Mama's toes. She tickles people and animals. She pretends to be different animals. She also does things that aren't particularly funny and then forces a laugh and then tells us to laugh.

Potty training is slowly evolving. She knows about the potty and toilet paper. She does funny things to go to the potty though. Like one day she insisted on taking off her pants and diaper, putting on her white shoes (specifically the white ones), reading a book, and pretending that a flashlight was a microphone. THEN, and only then, would she go to the potty. She went though, so I can't complain. Also, recently, she's started to think burps and farts are funny. And she'll call people on them too, so careful with the bodily functions around her, because she'll report what you did to everyone. For days.

She remembers everything. A couple of weeks ago she saw one of her Tios and his new truck. A week later she started telling me about his truck. Also, that he was wearing jeans and that she loves jeans.

Speaking of fashion, she "can't live without fashion!" This might be an odd phrase to teach a tiny person, but she loves shoes and clothes. An easy way to entertain her is to give her an ad with clothes in it. She loves to dress herself and choose her own clothing. Her favorite looks are to create a maxi dress out of one of mama's longer tanks (she criss crosses the straps all "by self") or to layer (a la bag lady). She also will create turbans out of pants. Not sure, but she may be hosting Little Edie Beale or Albert Soto (a departed friend who would understand Animalia's love of fashion). She's been putting on her simplest shoes "by self" for several months now.

She's a smarty pants. She knows lots of colors and numbers and letters. She can identify most letters by sight. Numbers too, up to thirteen. Not sure why she's stopped at thirteen but whatever, she's just a big baby anyway.