And Allie is now another month older. She was 23 months old last Tuesday, and now is not even a month away from her second birthday! How crazy is that? It feels just like yesterday when Allie was born and now, look at her:
[[image:allie668a.jpg:Wearing her trademark barrette:center:0]]
* Mouse over the pictures for captions
It does seem like this year is flying by really quickly. Can you believe that we are almost done with June? Half the year is done already! Allie has been growing like a weed, and absorbing everything around her. In this past month, we had our usual trip to New Jersey for work, but we also got to meet up with Amy and Jef in Philly, and Allie had a lovely playdate with their son Reza. We also met up with Min and Aida, and Allie had a playdate, with Aida’s son Casey yesterday. It’s really been quite an eventful month. Allie seems so close to speaking actual words. She doesn’t seem to want to repeat the words that she does know how to say but she is happily adding to her noises repertoire. She has, however, been consistently saying “night-night” to both Vin and me at bedtime. Her newest (and very amusing) animal noise is the hyena (“ha ha ha!”), and in addition to red, yellow and green, she now knows blue and orange. She gets confused by pink and blueish-green shades like aquamarine and turquoise (well, who doesn’t?) but those five basic colors she has down pat. She’s a fairly rough and tumble little girl. She took a fall the other day and skinned both her knees, one of them rather badly, but she did not cry (good girl!). Don’t worry, her knees have almost completely healed now. She just loves her bubbles and balloons. We are still reading Hop on Pop by Dr Seuss as her bedtime book. She has memorized a good chunk of the book, chanting (without words) along with us, not just using the correct number of syllables, but the correct intonation as well. It’s really quite funny.
She’s imitating everything we do, and really starting to feed herself with the spoon (this can be quite messy and requires supervision) but she’s getting there! Oh, and she is on her way to having ten teeth! Two molars have erupted through the gums but have not yet completely come out so she has had some fussy days (some light sleeping and some slow eating days) but she has not complained. She’s quite the trooper. And she has more teeth threatening to break through. She is still a singing and dancing machine, quite adept at picking up melodies, and now when she dances she mimicks finger-snapping which is utterly adorable.
Her hair is coming in not just growing in length, but in thickness as well. It takes quite a bit to actually wet it through when we wash her hair. And the reason why she wears the same barrettes over and over is that these are the only ones that work that are “salon clips” style. If the barrette is a traditional snap on barrette, she will actually yank out her own hair as she yanks out the barrette, something she likes to do from time to time. And we’ve purchased a few other kinds of clips which aren’t strong enough to hold her hair at bay. She refuses to allow her hair to be tied back out of her way. So we have to keep using these same barrettes, sometimes doubling them up to keep her hair out of her face. These clips have gone through the wash quite a few times as the poor things take a lot of punishment. 🙂 Speaking of punishment, Allie has gotten attached to two of her stuffed animals, Kiki the Koala (thank you Auntie Mei) and Pursley the Kitkat (thank you Auntie Mandy). Both these animals go everywhere with her, and sleep with her. They go into the grocery store, the post office. Everywhere. Allie even threw poor Pursley into the pool when we visited Corby and Sue and that poor cat had a swim (followed by vigorous toweling and a short stint in the dryer). Both these animals are taking some punishment, let me tell you!
Anyway, on to a recap of how Yaya spent her 23 month birthday. Summer is finally here! It does make me a happy girl 🙂 and Yaya loves being able to go outside and play. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, it rained all morning long. Allie starts off the morning with a bunch of milk and runs around in her pajamas:
[[image:allie639a.jpg:Hi Papa:center:0]]
[[image:allie641a.jpg:Smiiiiiiiiile!:center:0]]
(See the Father’s Day entry for an explanation of the smile)
[[image:allie640a.jpg:Kitkat wants her breakfast too:center:0]]
[[image:allie642a.jpg:Singing with Mama:center:0]]
[[image:allie643a.jpg:Can we go outside Papa?:center:0]]
Allie was quite disappointed and really wanted to go outside. Here she is trying to convince Papa that since she wasn’t wearing her pajamas anymore, it was time for some outdoor playtime:
[[image:allie644a.jpg:Please Papa, let’s go outside:center:0]]
[[image:allie645a.jpg:I’ll even put a hat on:center:0]]
[[image:allie646a.jpg:If we don’t go outside soon I will poke my eye out!:center:0]]
Alas, the rain did not let up. So Allie had to stay indoors and keep busy:
[[image:allie647a.jpg:Sorong sini (push here):center:0]]
[[image:allie649a.jpg:Sorong sana (push there):center:0]]
She pushed her stroller even though the brakes were on, she was that determined. Then she got in the stroller and hung out:
[[image:allie650a.jpg:Hi Bunny!:center:0]]
[[image:allie651a.jpg:Yay, this isn’t so bad after all!:center:0]]
She did look outside longingly:
[[image:allie648a.jpg:Rain, rain, go away, come again another day:center:0]]
UPS did make it even though it rained (FedEx did not, but that’s another story altogether…power cord craziness), so we opened some boxes and Yaya got some new early birthday stuff! Very easy to assemble too!
[[image:allie652a.jpg:Drawing on the table:center:0]]
[[image:allie653a.jpg:Magnets stick on the easel:center:0]]
[[image:allie654a.jpg:Stick this here:center:0]]
Since the rain was still going, we played balloons in the house (bubbles make too much of a mess and is a strictly outdoor activity):
[[image:allie655a.jpg:Caught the balloon:center:0]]
[[image:allie656a.jpg:Shrieking as she waits for the balloon to come within reach:center:0]]
[[image:allie657a.jpg:Caught this one too!:center:0]]
[[image:allie659a.jpg:Like my hat?:center:0]]
Some interactions with the kitkat:
[[image:allie658a.jpg:Kiiiiiss Kitkat!:center:0]]
[[image:allie660a.jpg:Stick and string toy:center:0]]
[[image:allie661a.jpg:Smell my empty teabag packet, Kitkat:center:0]]
[[image:allie662a.jpg:Are you brushing thoroughly, Yaya? Dental hygiene is very important:center:0]]
Other indoor activities needed (and coming right up!)
[[image:allie663a.jpg:Finger puppet show:center:0]]
[[image:allie664a.jpg:Another Smiiiiiiiile!:center:0]]
[[image:allie665a.jpg:Papa fixed my hair. Do you like it?:center:0]]
[[image:allie666a.jpg:When can I go outside?:center:0]]
Finally the sun has come out, but by this time it’s getting late and it was quite hot out. Plus she does seem to get eaten alive by mosquitoes when we go outside, even if Vin and I don’t see any and aren’t bitten ourselves. This is true later in the afternoon, especially, so we decided that she could wait to go and play outside another day.
[[image:allie667a.jpg:Basking in the sunlight courtesy of the skylight:center:0]]
[[image:allie669a.jpg:Dancing with Pursley:center:0]]
[[image:allie670a.jpg:Sitting in the stroller is fun!:center:0]]
[[image:allie671a.jpg:Hey who broke the reindeer antlers?:center:0]]
All in all, despite the rain, Allie had a great day and so did we. Another fun day, completing another fun month. And next month, Allie will reach a milestone birthday! Tune in in one month for a complete report on how she spent her real birthday (marking her entry into the terrible twos – God help us all).
And to close, Allie tells us that all is forgiven and she still had a fun-filled day despite the enforced indoor games and slight cabin fever:
[[image:allie672a.jpg:Smiiiiiiiiiiiile (version 3):center:0]]
Happy 23 month birthday, baby! Love you! See the rest of y’alls next month for the big one!
