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

...Annabel let me drop her off at the church nursery yesterday without tears. She acted excited about the nursery all morning, exclaiming things like, "Toys!" "Girls!" (apparently there's a whole crop of toddler girls at our church), "Dohs!" (Cheerios - the snack she gets there) and "Mommy come back!" which is what I always tell her I'll do. 
When we got there, she marched up to the nametag basket and asked for me to put her nametag on, noticed that they were reading Madeline inside,  and hurried over to the couch announcing "I read a Mine [her pronunciation of Madeline]!" before turning and dismissing me with a perfunctory, "Bye, Mommy!"

I breathed a big sigh of relief and checked "my child will associate church with tears and abandonment and grow up to be a heathen" off of my ever-so-long mommy worry list!

Annabel has a friend! In general, when we're with other kids (at ECFE, for instance) she tends to stick close to me, and prefers the adults. But she has gotten very excited about her little friend, Berit. We just spent a weekend up at the North Shore with some friends from church, including Berit's parents, and each morning when she woke up the first thing Annabel announced was, "I see Berit!" The two girls had great fun having snacks together, looking at books, and playing with blocks - and even "sharing" a pull toy by walking around with it holding hands.

So one of the reasons that Annabel and I have such a great relationship (besides the fact that we spend most of our waking hours together) is that we are both total creatures of habit. Routine is incredibly important for both of us; as long as I follow a routine, I feel like I'm in some sort of control and things will be okay, and I think Annabel has completely inherited this trait. (Her dad, on the other hand, is much more okay with what I would call chaos.)

I honestly think one of the reasons that she is such a good sleeper is because she is a routine monster, and so am I - I've just imposed routine on bedtime from about 3 months on, because it has helped me feel like I have some sort of a handle on what is happening with this small creature. And she has responded marvelously. Even when we're driving in the car, or flying on a plane, if I follow a certain routine she knows what will happen next, and what she's supposed to do next - namely, relax and go to sleep. I'm really grateful to have a first child who functions like me; it's made the transition to parenthood that much easier. Now the next one will probably be like his/her dad, at which point I am handing bedtime totally over to Jon.

She would wash her hands about 20 times a day if I would let her, in keeping with her passion for water and making messes.

Annabel has a magnet book made by Melissa and Doug - each page has letters of the alphabet with a magnet, you know, "A" with an apple magnet, and so on. She LOVES this book. The main attraction for awhile has been pulling out the magnets and scattering them around the house but lately she loves to sit with me and help me match the magnets to their proper spot. She still struggles to fit them in - they're a little small for her fingers - but she loves picking out where they go, trying, and then proclaiming, "Mommy do it!"

This milestone has consistently amazed me. For at least 4 or 5 months, Annabel has been able to match pictures to things she has encountered - in particular, kitty cats. She could see the most cartoonish cat picture, or I could draw one of my terrible stick-cats (artist, I am not), and she would immediately cry with delight, "Kitty!"

She has also been able to identify/match pictures of me, Jon, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends for quite awhile. And only very recently, she has started to identify herself in pictures. Her accuracy in this respect, however, is not 100% - recently, we were shopping in the toddler section of Macy's, and there was a large Ralph Lauren display with a photo of a girl around Annabel's age with curly blondish hair. Annabel pointed, and said, "Annabel!"

She actually wasn't that far off - at least, for someone whose vision is 20/60 (the toddler norm).

Annabel first started doing this at around 15 months - when my mom stayed with her back in April while we went to Barbados for a week. When we came home, Annabel was very proud to show us how she could put her clothes in the laundry hamper before her bath. Now, at 21 months, she can follow all sorts of simple instructions - to help pick up, to stop banging her high chair tray, to pet the kitty gently, to hold mommy's hand in a store or parking lot. Life is so much easier - and we both enjoy going out together so much more - when I can communicate responsibilities to her, and she can own them and obey!