Thursday, August 20, 2009

what's happening

We've been busy here with our usual day-to-day activities. Pete has been working lots and lots of hours [too many for me to count] so Zoe and I have had lots and lots of time together. Hopefully soon we will all get a short break to recharge.

Zoe is still fiercely independent and likes to choose what she wants to do and where she wants to go. She seems to know what everything is and how it works and she can tell where we're going in the car by the route we're taking. She is saying new words every day. Yesterday she said "elephant" which I thought was quite impressive. And she ate an entire banana, which used to take several days. She asks for "help" whenever she can't open something [like the fridge] or put on her shoes. She says "thank you" all the time and is saying "hello" instead of "hi" quite a bit. When I am getting her ready for bed she says "night night" and sometimes when I leave her room she says "bye!" and it's so cute. She has no problems taking naps or going to sleep which is completely awesome. I am really glad that we have totally committed to our bedtime routine for the past year.

She is eating lots of different foods. She won't swallow an actual vegetable. They go in her mouth and she makes a terrible and face and spits it out. So I've been making her applesauce with carrots and sweet potatoes mixed in. She likes to get it out of the fridge and says " sauce!" and then points to her cabinet and says "spoon" and then she carries it to the coffee table and says "help. help. help. help." until someone opens it and helps her eat it. She still loves meat and cheese and all kinds of fruit like "apple" and "anana" [banana]. Her favorite things are delivered by the Chinese food guy. She is very excited when he shows up at the door and runs to see him. Then she says "eat? eat? eat? eat?" until we open up the boxes and get the plates out. General Tso's chicken is what she likes best, and chow mein noodles, and crab rangoon. She likes hot & sour soup and steamed rice, too. She won't eat anything that is bland or unseasoned. We know she loves salmon. She would eat it all day for every meal if I made it for her that often.

Like most kids, her favorite beverage is water from the garden hose. She can't get enough of it. I hope there aren't too many germs & parasites lurking in it. She actually took a big drink the other day while I was trying to water the plants and then smiled and said "yum!"

I bought a membership to the zoo and we went a couple of days ago. I took our wagon and a little cooler with juice & snacks. Constance met us there and we walked around for a few hours, which was 3 times longer than I thought Zoe would want to sit still. The wagon is a magical thing, though. She can see everything around her and I can get her in & out without messing with a bunch of straps and stuff. We saw lots of animals and Zoe had a long conversation with an orangatan. The new penguin exhibit was pretty cool. There were lots of ground-level windows to look through and big rocks to climb over. I forgot to take my camera but I'm planning to go again next week if the rain holds off. This zoo has an indoor kids area with a separate area for toddlers where they can run and run and run and climb on stuff and play drums and crawl through big logs. It's the perfect way to end a zoo trip. She sits in the wagon for a couple of hours and then runs around like crazy and screams and then I can put her in the car and she's totally worn out. Zoo memberships are good at zoos all over the country so I'm hoping that we can take her to the KC or St.Louis Zoo and the Portland Zoo and maybe even the zoo in Chicago someday.

I suppose that's about it for the update. According to my last measurements she is about 30 inches tall and weighs about 25 pounds. She is still little, in about the 25th percentile, for her age. Her feet are a 5 1/2 baby shoe size. I guess in December she'll be a 2 and then for awhile she'll be acting her age and her shoe size.

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