Silly Faces

Annie is cracking us up these days. She has an assortment of "silly faces" she'll put on (sometimes on her own, sometimes when prompted) and is quite happy to find others amused at her. She has an infectious giggle that is most often prompted by very active games of run-and-hug-and-tackle and peek-a-boo. Her interaction with her dolls and stuffed animals is growing more and more elaborate...they share lunch with her, take drinks (always with a refreshed "ahh" at the end--just like Annie), make the sign for motorcycle with her, and generally are included in her various activities. She is very fair with them, and chooses a different animal each time we head to the car, making sure no one misses out the excitement of seeing vehicles, trees, rivers, bridges, etc. She also loves interacting with the pictures of relatives that we have up on the fridge, taking them back and forth to magnetic surfaces, dancing with them, zerberting them, giving them tastes of her snacks and drinks. We wish she got to see all of her family as much as she sees the pictures, but it makes us happy to know she's becoming so familiar with faces.

We've joined both the Children's Museum and the Zoo, and have already made good use of that--it's nice to feel like we can visit for just a couple of hours and have that be okay. At the zoo, she LOVES the monkeys and the fish, and seemed quite tickled to have the grizzly bears play in the water just on the other side of her (I'm doing my best not to instill my fear of bears in her!). When visiting with her friend Kaj (and his parents!), we enjoyed riding the tractor out to the farm where they got to hang out with goats, sheep, pigs, and chickens!

At the Children's Museum, one of Annie's favorite stops is the bus, which she loves to drive. Of course, she can't see over the steering wheel, but she's pretty intent on steering away. This morning at the museum, she spent a significant amount of time in the toddler area (Habitot, which has the four habitats of Minnesota represented in fun playthings for little ones) wearing a bird costume--she quite enjoyed flapping her arms and seeing the wings move! The other big fascination for her today was discovering that almost everyone had a sticker (the museum's sticker--her ticket if you will!) just like her--some had them on their fronts and some on their backs, but--as she was quite concerned to discover--the employees did not have them too.

We're all headed for a new adventure next week...We've been using a cloth diaper service and really have enjoyed that. But, the service is going out of business and there are no other such options around us. So, we debated for awhile, but are going to try to continue the cloth diaper experience on our own. I went shopping yesterday for diapers of our own (thankfully we already had covers), and am enjoying with each diaper change this week the fact that I can just put the diaper right in the bin and not have to think about washing it.

Besides this, we've been busy planting (a boulevard garden), playing, grilling, and getting organized. Even though none of us are on a school year calendar at this point, September is definitely ingrained in us as the beginning of year...I'm busy trying to think of a reason why I should go to Office Max, I'm quite fond of buying school supplies...