Where are you, water?

I usually start a blog post with a least a vague mental outline of the things I want to share, but in this case I'm blogging simply because it's been a long time since my last post, and also because I know I won't have much quiet time to myself in the very near future. For a very long time now, I've had nothing but myself to blame for a lack of posting. Yes, life is busy and there are always other things I could be doing that are productive, but in the end the truth is that I hate writing and always have. The subject is irrelevant. I would much rather express myself through conversation because I feel like I can make my point more effectively and certainly in less time. But here I am anyway, because I desperately want to remember these days exactly for what they are. Since I also have a serious aversion to scrap-booking this is the only other way I can think of to "easily" document my life as a parent, and to one day give my kids a glimpse into their childhood. (Side note: I know MANY women who love to scrap-book, and I applaud you. You do amazing work and I am always jealous of your neat, organized, and artsy books of your kids. I just have NO patience for that much detail. But if anyone wants to make one FOR me... :))

There is no other way to describe Allison right now, than to say that she is just too stinkin' cute. She is talking almost non-stop, and she is finding new ways to use her words daily! I'm totally amazed by her. I just watched a video I took of her a year ago when she had just started walking, and she was just a babbling little baby. Now, Allison will be turning two in less than two weeks!! I can't believe how much she's changed!

I've been trying to teach her to answer the question 'how old are you?' for about a week, but I think the concept of age is totally lost on her. I hold up my two fingers to represent the number, and she thinks that is fantastic. She isn't able to do it with her hand for some reason, so she just bends fingers at random (looking more like a claw) and yells 'TWO!'. See what I mean by cute??

I think talking with Allison is my new favorite thing. She speaks mainly in phrases now, and I'm still not used to it. I actually have to pay attention when she talks now to figure out what she's trying to communicate instead of assuming that it's just baby babble like it was just 6 months ago. Some of her most used phrases are:

I see a ___. (could be anything from an airplane to a ladybug)
what are you doing?
where are you going or where did #name go?
more ___ .
no, mine! (we are working to extinguish that one!)
good morning, Mama. (one of my favorites)
here you go!
Thank you, welcome!
I don't see 'em.
There he/she is!
I don't know.
Ready, set, go!
What's this?
See you later!

She also addresses me specifically when she talks, and I'm not sure where she learned that. For example, she will say 'thank you, mama', 'ready, mama', or 'more crackers, mama'. It's the sweetest thing, and I love it!

Frank and I made a trip to Borders a couple weeks ago so that everyone in the family could get a new book. Allison made it out with 'Goodnight Moon'. Great book! I'm sure most of you know it, but the whole book is about a bunny going to bed and he is saying goodnight to everything in his room. Last week I told Allison it was nap-time so she ran to her room and sat on her bed facing all of her stuffed animals. The next thing I hear is 'night pillow, night baby, night bear, night sheep, night Tasha (Backyardigans stuffed toy), night mama, night Maggie, night book...'. I called Frank and asked if he taught her that, but no, she had decided to apply the book to her nap all on her own. I love her imagination!

Here are some pictures of our trip to the zoo that was almost two months ago. Frank and I were convinced that she would love seeing the animals, but in reality, she just wanted to run free around the zoo. She seemed mostly irritated when we'd stop her to show her an exhibit, so in the end we just let her run. She had a blast!













The rest of these pictures are pretty random, but you'll notice that most of them are outside and involve water in some way. Frank taught her how to water the tree in our backyard, so that has become almost a daily task for them that I'm pretty sure she looks forward to all day. We also go and swim at her Aunt Amy's house every couple of weeks.



























I'll leave you with few more pictures and a cute video of Allison. She loves to brush her teeth and wash her hands which we did after our trip to the park last week. I was trying to get her to talk so everyone could hear her sweet voice, but of course kids never perform. Notice, though, that when I ask her to say 'I love you, mama' she instead says 'love, Papa'. Lately, my dad has been the only one she will say that she loves, and it's true that he's her favorite person in the world. We can't figure out what he did to win her affections, but she is totally sold!