Spring... Finally!

The weather here finally got warm again, so of course that fuels Anna's obsession with the bebow even more. Today she got to go over there in a t-shirt and capris (but because they're sized 18 mos, they're actually the length of pants), and of course she just didn't want to leave. She made a couple friends, girls who were much older than her... but they were really sweet, and Anna seemed to like them a lot. She amazes me with how well she runs now, and to think that she couldn't even walk a couple months ago. I'm thinking that I might have a very conscientious little girlie, who wants to be perfect at everything... fun fun fun.

I could do without her picky eating, that's for sure. And she's so opinionated now, like sometimes she refuses to eat unless she's feeding herself (that's fun, let me tell you), or she won't leave the park, even if it's bed time. She has a fit any time I make her do something she doesn't want to do. Of course I'm worried that she's getting way too spoiled, and that somehow I'm ruining her wonderful disposition, but my hope is that this is one of those toddler phases that won't stick around too long... we'll see.

At the Bebow With Grammie

Anna got to try out a new park yesterday in Downers Grove, which turned out to be awesome. There were two playgrounds, and one of them was geared toward 2-5 yr. olds - perfect! There were slides that were small enough that Anna could go down them ALL BY HERSELF! Amazing! Grammie played with her and let her go down the slides, swing on the swings, run down to the pond and look at the ducks, and of course climb all the steps. I was jogging around the track, and Anna couldn't care less, she was having so much fun! At the time I thought that I wish I had taken some pictures, because her and Grammie looked so cute playing together... and I wish even more now that I had some pictures!

Something else that's very amusing is that Anna is really, really excited about her new toilet seat. I picked it up last weekend in preparation for her potty training - I plan on starting that this summer, just to see how it goes. The seat has Elmo and fishes on it, and she absolutely loves to sit on it, point to Elmo and the fish, and declare, "Wabu wabu!" She hasn't actually peed yet, but it's still pretty funny to watch.

Tomorrow we head to Starved Rock for our free night's stay at Grizzly Jack's. I was hoping that we'd get to do a little hiking and wandering around, but of course it's supposed to rain and be chilly all weekend. Oh well, more to come about that later...

New Language

Anna'a vocabulary is growing rapidly, but does it count when they're not real words? I'm not sure. In any case, I've already mentioned that "bebow" means park and "Oleo" (or Oyeo... Ogeo?) means dog. She also says "wabu wabu" for fish, both goldfish and regular. Obviously she will say "Ball" for ball, and she says "Hi" and "Bah bye." Tim is very excited that she says, "Da" when she sees or hears him, although she no longer seems interested in saying "Mama," much to my dismay.

Something else that's really cute is that she will answer questions by saying "ya," which I'm sure Stephen would love, since "ja" is so German and everything. It actually seems like she understands a lot of what I'm saying, like I'll ask her if she wants to get dressed, and she'll say, "Ya!" and run to her bedroom. Or I'll ask her if she wants to go for a walk, and she'll say "Yah!" again and run to the back door. I'll ask her if she loves Grammie, Grampy, Auntie Loonie, Daddy, etc, and she answers "Ya!" for that as well! If she's tired, however, and sucking her thumb, sometimes she'll simply make a "Hmm?" sound in response. If she's tired enough, she'll point to her crib, and I'll ask her if she wants to go in her cribbie. She says, "Ya," I put her in there, she cuddles up, and then she says, "Bah bye!" and goes to sleep! I find it AMAZING when she does that! What a wonderful girl she is, and so full of her own opinions now!

Bebow!

Anna's new obsession is going to the park, which she calls the "bebow" for some inexplicable reason. She talks about it all the time, whether it's raining, snowing, early, or late. We have one right across the street, so all she has to do is look out the window to get all worked up. When we're on our walks or bike rides, whatever, she will get so excited when we pass one. Although she enjoys the swings for short stretches at a time, she really likes climbing the steps the most. Going down the slides is fun too, although she still needs a little support with that. I couldn't believe it when the other day she climbed the ladder to the biggest slide all by herself! She's getting really strong and well-balanced. There's a sandy area of the park too, with a metal train that she likes to climb in. It seems like she'll tire of it eventually... right?

Rocking Chair Revelation

Last night while we were at Grammie and Grampy's, Anna had a revelation. She figured out the proper motion to get the rocking chair moving properly. I know it doesn't sound like much, but up until yesterday she always just sort of rocked back and forth very quickly. It was cute the way she used to do it, but it wasn't very effective in getting the chair to move. After she had climbed the stairs a million times (which isn't much of an exaggeration, according to Grammie), she kept going into "her" room and getting into the rocking chair. I don't know what happened, but something clicked, she slowed down her movements, and the chair started rocking really well! She gets so proud of herself, and now she does it right all the time.

I've figured out another "word" that Anna says to mean something. "Oleo" is dog, for whatever reason. Anytime she points to Abbey or sees a dog, she says it. Very strange. She does also say "bow wow" for dogs, which is pretty cute.

She has an obsession with balls too. She can find a ball anywhere, whether it be in person, in a book, on the tv, it doesn't matter. Very enthusiastically she will exclaim, "BALL!" She gets very excited anytime she's able to communicate with us :-)

Anna is now able to identify her ears, head, nose, mouth, teeth, toes, feet, fingers, and hands. Wow!

SECOND Easter!

It's amazing that Anna is celebrating her second Easter this year. And of course she got to celebrate it twice, once with my family and once with Tim's. Saturday started off pretty yucky, with lots of rain... perfect for an Easter egg hunt, right? We went to the North Berwyn PD hunt, and Anna really didn't care that it was raining at all. Being her first hunt, she wasn't sure what to do at first - I showed her an egg and she tried to put it in another kid's basket! She got the idea quickly though and did a great job! Unfortunately the Easter Bunny ran off before she got the chance to see him much, because of course she loves the bunny. Grammie and Auntie Loonie also filled her basket with goodies, which always makes Ms. B happy! The sun came out after lunch, and that made the rest of our day quite nice!

The next day, after we went to church, we drove up to Woodstock for Tim's family's Easter. We had a nice meal, then we had another egg hunt, then we hung out and played for a while. They have a swing set and slide in their yard, so Anna was pretty happy and spent most of her time there. She got to play with her aunties for a bit while I had some dessert (YAY! I gave it up for Lent, so I was ready!), and by the time we left she was pretty exhausted. It started pouring on the way home, so we were quite fortunate that it held off until after the festivities were over.

Zoo Trip

Good Friday was an absolutely gorgeous day this year. It felt more like summer, with temperatures about 80 degrees and sunny, blue skies. We took advantage of it and went to the zoo for the first time this year. I had the idea of riding our bikes there instead of driving, and boy am I glad we did! The line of cars going to the zoo was insane; it wrapped around First Ave. with no end in sight. We just biked right up to the entrance with no problems, and Anna had a great time riding with me, thank goodness! We couldn't take the stroller with us on the bikes, so we rented one of their dolphin strollers. Anna LOVED it! I don't know if it was the dolphin itself that she loved or if it was the way the stroller let her see everything around her, but she got a kick out of it. We looked around at as much as we could, but it was so crowded that it limited what we could do. The line for the children's zoo was really long, so we had to skip that, the bears were off exhibit because of their new home (great bear wilderness) not being open yet, the dolphins are still gone, and I wanted to stay outside as much as possible. We let Anna run around a bit too after riding around in the stroller for a while. Everyone was very excited about this dolphin stroller, like they had never seen one before or something (one kid even exclaimed, "Look! It's a whale wagon!" We loved it). After we had stayed a few hours and Anna had taken a little nap, we decided to head home. The joys of having a zoo membership; it didn't matter that we missed out on a lot - we can just come back another day! Squirt completely passed out right around 8:00 or so, which is usually the indicator of a really great day!

Visit to the Easter Bunny

Last weekend us girls (Tim still in the Philippines) went to the Riverside Mall to let Anna meet the Easter Bunny for the first time! First we did a little shopping, mostly trying to find shoes for Ms. B to wear on Easter, but we had no luck. It was getting pretty late, and she hadn't taken her nap yet, so I just assumed that the whole encounter would be a big fat disaster... however, I was in for a surprise. There wasn't much of a line, which also surprised me, so I decided that we should just go for it before she completely melted down. I took her up there, put her down, and let her walk up to him herself. She did so, sat on his knee, and was very happy indeed about it. When I picked her up to go pay for the pictures, she wanted me to put her back down so that she could go back over to him. She ran back over there, right up to him, and wanted to get back on his lap. Seriously, she LOVED him and didn't want to leave. She was so excited it was the cutest thing ever! Eventually I had to pick her up so that we could go and others could have their turns, and that was the first time she cried. Ever since then, every time she sees a bunny she gets very excited. Who knew?