Little Rebel

Before putting Stella down for a nap this afternoon, I grabbed my camera. We've been having chilly but gorgeous weather here in the Northwest, and the light has been spectacular. As we were wrestling on our bed, Stella grabbed a few quiet moments here and there.

Man, I don't think I'll ever tire of staring at this beautiful goofball.

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Another funny anecdote: Normally, Brian has his alarm set with a soft a soothing song much like this one.

This morning, we woke to this... check out the 44 second mark of this video. That's exactly what interrupted my lovely dream about sunshine and a cat. Of course, we started laughing really hard as we groggily realized that wee fingers had found the alarm at some point yesterday and given us a new wake-up call.

A Balanced Diet

Stella loves her stickers.

She loves her special sticker box.

She loves sticker fashion.

She loves stickers so much that after studying this particular beauty, she popped it in her mouth and swallowed.

(Mama didn't document the actual consumption because she was busy trying to fish that puppy out of Stella's mouth. To no avail. Hmmmm.)

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Another funny tidbit: This evening, I asked Stella, "Can you give Mama a kiss, please?" She smiled demurely, leaned toward me and then dropped to the floor and gave a big old sloppy kiss to her foot.

Analyze that.

The Words a'Floweth

Okay, so these pictures don't have much to do with this post. Well, they sorta do. At least I'll try to make a connection. (Since we've been back, the camera has been resting. It's been nice to live without the paparazzi lurking around every corner. A break is good.)

Stella is starting to talk. And while we've been waiting for this moment with giddy anticipation, nobody could have told me how hilarious it is to hear your own child say "potato" for the first time.

While we were in Costa Rica, we could tell Stella was really working on something. Here she is with her classic "What's that?" - a question this curious girl has been asking for about six months.

And here she is further investigating what "that" is. But she seemed unusually focused while we were traveling. And since we've returned home, we realize she was honing in on language in a whole new way while we were gone.

Stella is now a blabbermouth. She's not stringing together words yet, but I can tell that's coming soon. Interestingly, she is demanding to be read to all the time. I literally went to bed last night with a hoarse voice from all our reading. She's an obsessed linguistic sponge. It seems like there are about two or three new words a day in this house, and I've never heard the words "orange" and "bubble" sound so beautiful.

Like most parents, we're simply happy that Stella is less and less frustrated (see above) as she communicates with us big people.

Here's the latest list, in no particular order, of Stella's growing vocabulary...

orange

brown

purple

meow

moo

woof woof

mau-oof (the sound a camel makes... duh)

potato

hi / bye

night night

banana

toast

bath

mama

papa

Isaac

Poppy

okay

yes / no

nose

eye

ear

bored

happy

hat

up / down

story

toys

more

What's this? / What's that?

cookie

bubble

brush brush

paw

Go Dog, Go!

Gossie

choo choo

And tonight, as I told Brian that our dear friends' nineteen month old now says "F*$! It" all the time, Stella followed suit. Add that to the list. Oops.