There's no place like home

Well, I guess I've finally caught up through our vacation. It was great to get away, wonderful to see C's grandparents, but it's equally nice to get back to home and our routine. It's taken a few weeks, but C seems to be back on a nap schedule--finally. It's such a relief to be able to plan to accomplish things during that time again, and to be able to plan activities for particular times of the day! We've had a few "big" things happen in the time since I started trying to get the vacation blogged.

We had a playdate for MOPS at the Oasis Pool (cute name for a pool in the desert, huh?) one morning. C started out clinging to me, but very quickly became comfortable enough to stretch out and try to kick. She has a really cute froggie-style kick. She hasn't ventured to reaching out to paddle with her arms yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. She's so comfortable in the water! We spent a good half hour to 45 minutes of our time in the pool "jumping" in. She was jumping; I was catching. She started out sitting on the edge of the pool and sliding directly into my arms. This graduated rapidly to standing on the edge and walking directly into my arms. After a few of these "jumps", I started standing further and further away (further being inches, of course) and she stepped out toward me, allowing herself to go under water and pop back out. She decided this was great fun and giggled every time she emerged. Wish I had pictures, but then again, I was the one in the pool with her! Maybe next time I'll remember to have someone around take a few.

A few milestones have occurred as well. She's such a good little girl; she's going to bed cooperatively says"pease" and "tant tou" without a reminder sometimes and even plays independently, without an audience, for short periods of time. Verbally, she's made leaps and bounds. She calls me "Mommy" now, F has become "Daggy" for the time being and knows Shadow's name, and calls her by it. She has picked up some phrases, like "there you go", "(a)gin" and "opme" (open it for me). Most of her phrases have been word sets that F and I use on a fairly regular basis. She put together her first sentence a while ago, "that's my doggy" when I was pretending to nap on her brown beanie buddy. Last night though, she finally put together the item requested _with_ the please, saying "up pease". Usually she says "up" and then we wait and she'll say "pease". Her physical skills are astonishing me. She put her dressy shoes on by herself the other day, on the correct feet, with the velcro straps done up, and speaking of shoes, she had my flipflops on just yesterday, with the divider through the toes correctly! She's doing really quite well with feeding herself with a spoon--only about 5 % ends up on the floor or her anymore. Just today she started putting her arms through her shirt while she's getting dressed in the morning, and has decided that she wants to throw her own diaper away after changing. Most impressive though is her jumping. She graduated from bouncing to two-footed hopping very recently, and there is much hopping around the house, especially when music is on!