Well, I am breaking out of the blog fog and finally updating after a very busy May month. We have been so busy and Callie is keeping me so constantly occupied with other things that I haven't been able to blog all month. We also had some computer problems and we were also out of town for Matt's cousin Meredith's wedding shower and a week long trip to the lake to visit Nana and Papa and some of my Roanoke friends. Finding computer time is very difficult now that Callie wants to be outside much more and also because she has some vendetta against the computer. The second my fingers hit the keyboard, she is all over me, demanding that I do something else with her. The same thing happens when I get a phone call. It is "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" all the time until close to 4pm and that is when it switches to "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" Once Matt gets home, she doesn't let him have a second to himself and they spend the evenings playing "Uh Oh" (a game where he pretends to let her fling him into Mommy and furniture) and "Fly! Fly!" (pretending the laundry basket is an old WWII fighter plane, gunning down Mommy, the cats and then finally crash landing on the bed.) Callie is talking so much now. She rarely says a complete sentence, but she mimics phrases she hears us say and tries to say about anything you ask her to repeat. She is really entertaining us with her new language abilities too. Yesterday she was repeating, "Buy fruit. Buy fruit" because I told her we were going to the Farmer's Market to do that. Matt walked in and said he was leaving for work and said, "Bye, bye Callie". She replied with, "Bye, bye fruit!" leaving us both doubled over in hysterics. She loved that we were both laughing at her so she repeated it and then changed it to "Daddy fruit" once Matt tried to protest and say he was NOT a fruit. We are also realizing that she is listening to us and really understanding now. On the drive home from dinner last night, she interjected the word "baff" (bath) into our conversation about what we were going to do when we got home. I had no intention of giving her a bath last night but once we got home and she finished her snack she looked at me very sternly and said, "Mommy, baff", hit herself on the chest to indicate that she wanted her clothes taken off and then literally marched to the bathroom. We are so fortunate that, so far, she is not shouting bratty phrases or screaming "mine" or "no" over everything. She still is a very even tempered toddler. She even says, "yiis, momma" when she has been asked if she understands a request to clean or something I have said to scold her. One day she said "yiss, momma" with every block she put into the box. I felt a little like Hitler hearing this robotic mantra, but she is really listening and does things with a kind heart, not begrudgingly. One day, all it took was the mere mention that she should clean up her puzzle before I vacuumed. Two minutes later I returned and it was done. I stood there shocked and then praised her profusely and rewarded her with candy! I guess I shouldn't make a habit of that, but I was just so thrilled that she listened the first time and did it so effortlessly. This may seem like a long list of mommy bragging, but I wanted to write about these things so that I could read back on them one day in case she is a rebellious teenager!
Anyway, all our outside time and an unusually rainless May has meant that a lot of time has been spent outside working in the yard while she plays. Callie has also helped in the yard by picking up sweet gum balls, sticks and with the planting. Back in April, she helped Grampy plant his summer annual seeds. Weeks later, Grampy brought all the plants that Callie planted and they worked together to plant them in our yard. She loved everything about this process and showed her amazement at every step with her typical open mouth awe. Her flowers are coming up nicely and she loves to help me water, especially if it means that she gets very wet in the process! Here are some pictures from the seed planting in April and then the transplanting of the flowers in May.
