Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Sarah in town

Our friend Sarah was in town from her new home in Toronto. We're glad that although she's living in a different country, she's much closer to us now than when she lived in Seattle! We had a fun mini-TJ High School reunion evening of game-playing. The next day we spent a rather warm but lovely day walking around Old Town Alexandria.

Vanessa has been having more and more stranger anxiety lately, but she was quite content to sit on Sarah's lap for a good story!



Vanessa and I have been keeping busy playing with all the wonderful girls and mommies in our play group. Here's Tess, Grace, Vanessa, and Revie trying out the sand and water table. There was much splashing and getting sandy, but much less eating of sand than I expected.


Vanessa has learned that clothes are for putting on, and that usually means putting on over her head! For example, she spent almost an entire evening trying to put on the Toronto shirt that Sarah gave her. Here she's trying on her daddy's tie.

An exciting development related to this is that Vanessa now understands that she wears diapers, and she is able to communicate to me when she needs a diaper change by trying to pick up a diaper from the bag where I store them. She understands the need to get diapers off, but unfortunately not that she needs one back on, and she always wriggles free and runs away before I get her new one on. I forsee that something in my house will one day be peed upon. Ah well, I needed motivation to keep the library books off the floor anyway.

Vanessa has picked up a few new signs, although some such as alligator and yogurt she seems to have forgotten. She now signs cat and car and she can point to her teeth.

She also has been working on her catching, throwing, and kicking skills. James has been playing with her and I was surprised at how well she can catch and throw and kick her soccer ball!

About 2 days ago, Vanessa suddenly developed the ability to put things in a specific place, instead of just picking them up! I first noticed that she could put her records on her toy record player. Now she's practicing putting her toys in boxes. At long last, she'll be able to help me clean up! Hmmm... perhaps I have a year or more to wait (you're right, potentially a lot more!). In the meantime, I'm sure I'll be fishing toys out of interesting places.

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