Things I don't want to forget

Why this is a journal...things I don't want to forget so I need to jot them down:

1. On the way to school on Wednesday, Anna was playing with a CD in the back seat. The way the sun shined down into the car reflected off of the CD such that it made pretty bright prisms on the roof of the truck. She noticed. And had a great time moving the CD around at different angles to make the prisms move all over the truck. She was in complete control over a spectacular little laser light show.

2. Before the laser light show, I noticed some happy activity from a crossguard at the stoplight near our house. Upon closer inspection, he was waving and smiling at my truck. When I turned around to look, Anna was waving and smiling back. The guy was tickled. Anna kept waving more and saying "hi!". When the light turned green, she yelled "bye bye!" and then "more?" All the way to school she would wave to people in the cars next to us. Some saw and some will never know they were being waved at by a 22-month-old that morning. If the cars pulled away, Anna would say "more?" and I'd have to tell her to wait till we found another car to wave at.

So cute. So fun.

Other than a pesky new cough, she's sleeping through the night again. She's backing off the paci again now that her teeth aren't bothering her as much. She doesn't ask unless she hurts herself or something. Then we can still usually distract her from the paci. So hopefully we'll get back to where we were with the paci before this teething started...just in time for the last 2 bottom molars to come in. But that's a bonus: WE ONLY HAVE TWO MORE TEETH TO GO AND THEN TEETHING WILL BE OVER. Yee-ha. The way I feel about teething is a whole separate post based around the fact that although Anna wasn't that bad as far as teething can go, it's just another variable to have to consider (ear infection? teething? sick? travel? oh my God, is this the terrible two's?, WTH?) when you're trying to figure out why yout usually good toddler becomes a defiant, cranky, pain-in-the-butt.

She's been asking for a pen, and by that she means she wants to draw. She will take the pen and scribble, then proclaim: "snowman!" I guess this is related to the many snowman drawings and art stuff they've been doing at school. She always wants to draw a snowman. She will sit there quietly with a pen and paper and just "draw". At the pedi's office earlier this week, I told her we were going to draw an "A". So I told her to hold the pen while I helped her draw an A. She loved it. The look on her face was: "WOW look what mommy can do, and look what she's teaching me to do! Mommy is so cool, and this is so cool!" I love it when she looks at me like that.

Yesterday when she woke from her nap, she just kept asking for Brody, TJ, and OM. So we had to go "see-um". Thankfully TJ didn't mind the drop in and we hung out for about an hour while TJ fed Anna chips and TJ, OM and MM put together a Christmas gift I brought over. It was a beautiful day and it was fun being off of work to hang out with friends and family. Priceless.

Last night she asked to ride on a boat. Unfortunately we live near water but don't own a boat. Then she asked for a choo-choo ride. She's flashing back to Disney, I think. I told her this weekend we will go to the zoo and ride the choo-choo. She looked up at me, again with that look of: "really mom?! I am so EXCITED! Are you gonna do that for me?" and said "CHOO-CHOO? RIDE!" And she just stood up straigh, excited, eyebrows up, like: "FOR REAL?" It's like foreshadowing to when she gets older: the look of "I promise to be really, really good, and I am so looking forward to this!!" All the way up the stairs to her bath she listed off animals at the zoo she wanted to see. Birds, elephant, hippo, giraffe, zebra. This morning she asked again. She's starting to not forget. I hear this can be dangerous. (Especially in this case if the weather got ad or something). So we're entering that zone of not making promises to do somethine ahead of time, in case it turns out you can't do it. But so help me, she is so adorable when she gets excited like that.

One last thing.
She's been saying "I love you" for months now. She will only give kisses after you chase her down, usually. Sometimes she'll give them when you ask, but it's very rare. She doesn't just give them away, usually. Last night I gave her a little kiss on her cheek after her bath, and she giggled and said, "I love you!" WTH? So she knows that kisses mean I love you. How sweet is this? Then I told her to go tell Daddy "I love you". So she found Paul, said, "I love you" and even gave him an un-initiated kiss. Ahhhh...I love a non-cuddly toddler who knows what love is.