The adventures of two kiddos, her folks, and a cat The Belle No Longer Stands Alone

This evening, Annabel was kneeling in the kitchen near a shelf with cookies on it. She looked over at Sarah (who was watching her) and said:

"No mommy look at Annabel!"

I love it when Annabel repeats a word or phrase that she probably only 80% understands, but hears us saying. Here are a few examples.

At bedtime, instead of asking to read a book, or read some books, she'll often say:

"Read couple of books"

Today, instead of asking for some yogurt for a snack, she said:

"How about some yogurt?"

Instead of saying that she's tired, she'll sometimes say:

"Annabel little bit tired."

Each of these could be communicated with fewer words, but she's learning and experimenting with language.

So periodically, I like to imagine what Annabel will be when she grows up based on what she's most into at the moment. On December 21, 2008, this is what the crystal ball foretells:

1. Line cook or sous-chef
Annabel was given the Toddler Cookbook by my mom for Christmas, and she absolutely loves to read it just like any other picture book. She will sit one of us down on the couch, hand us the book, and command, "Talk!" (her sweet way of saying, "Read to me, please") Then we have to take her through it page by page, especially the helpful instructions at the beginning: here is how you separate an egg, here is how you measure dry ingredients, here is how to grate hard cheese..." She also loves to "help" with the prep components of cooking, especially cracking an egg (which is usually disastrous) or measuring flour. 

2. Lion tamer
Annabel LOVES to boss the cat around. If the cat even moves in the direction of the kitchen table (which is forbidden), Annabel is all over it, insisting "kittycat get down! get down!"

3. Color commentator on ESPN
Every moment of every day is narrated by this little one. Really. EVERY moment. She's practicing for SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight already, we think.

Annabel last night:

"Ha ha ha ha." (pause) "Annabel laughing!"

This morning, Annabel was standing next to the Christmas tree, holding my phone and pressing buttons with both hands. She would "type" with her fingers on the keypad for a few moments, them aim the phone at the tree. When I asked her what she was doing, she looked seriously up at me and replied, "texting the Christmas tree!"


How she got the concept of texting and somehow thought that was an appropriate way to communicate with our Christmas tree, I have absolutely no idea.

...while holding a play phone up to her ear and looking very serious:
"Hi Becca! How doing?"

[pause]

"Great! Bye-bye!"

[hands the phone to me]

"Mommy, talk Becca!"

We stayed with Erin and Jeff Kersh (thanks guys!) in California over Thanksgiving, and they have a 1-year-old child. One of their toys that Annabel took to immediately were magnetic letters on the fridge. Annabel knows a few letters (like "O", "P", "B", and "F" for some reason), and enjoys playing with them. As she was playing one morning, and I was drinking my coffee, she did two things that really showed off her developing imagination.

1. She pushed the letter "O" behind a piece of paper held onto the fridge by magnets. She then turned to me and said:

'O' hiding!

2. Next, she was playing with the W and the M. She knows W and calls it "double". I showed her that they look the same when turned upside-down. So she turned them both onto their sides, like ∑, and said:

Double napping!

It's fun to see her imagination developing like that.