I like . . . me.

For anyone who ever saw the show "Jon & Kate Plus Eight", do you remember when it was a show about eight cute little kids growing up?  In one episode, the mom divulged that the children liked to watch the show, and their unanimous favorite aspect of the show was watching their mom and dad on t.v.  They had no interest in watching themselves or their siblings.  It was all about mom and dad.

That wouldn't be Leah.  She likes watching her favorite thing, herself, a lot.  Sesame Street holds her attention for a moment. Some cartoons can occupy Leah for a minute or two.  Even Barney is only good for a maximum three minutes at a time.  Repeated leg stretches are necessary during a Barney tape.  However, she can and will watch the same 45 second video of the world's cutest kid, again, herself, repeatedly.  To give you an idea, our motion light outside is set to remain on for five minutes.  Leah sat on dad's lap for two cycles of this motion light, visible just outside the window by the computer, while watching the same minute long video of Leah wandering around the family room.  No singing, no dancing, no scaling the Empire State Building and swatting at biplanes.  Just wandering around and making baby faces.  This is her current greatest pleasure in life.

Gene Kelly would be jealous of such narcissism. 

The scariest part (yes, scary) is how funny Leah finds the conclusion of the video in which she scowls at her mother's insistence that she is not "dada" but "mama."  Every time the baby in the video is corrected she then lowers her brow and looks kind of evil-mean, Leah sits at the computer and smiles really big, and maybe even laughs a little.  

And yet, we'll appreciate these days.  Someday, this "Aren't I the greatest?" will turn into "Why doesn't everyone else think so, all the time?" And the brow will lower...

(Posted by Dan)

November Update

It occurred to us the other day that we had not posted since Halloween. Seems that we are overdue for one!

Leah appears to be beginning her vocal growth spurt. In just the last couple weeks, she has added “kitty” (pronounced “titty”), “bear” (beh), “swing” (eeen), “water” (wa), and the ever popular “no” (nah) to her vocabulary. I love that she’s communicating more, and she cracks us up with her facial expressions and hand gestures when she babbles.

The girl LOVES to dance. Barney songs, the Elmo’s World theme, music from her toys, even commercial jingles and the Jeopardy theme all have her bopping, swaying, and clapping to the beat. When she's not rocking out, Leah has also taken up screaming. ALL. THE. TIME. Silly screams of excitement, angry tantrum screams, or simply “Here I am! Notice me!” screams. Our ears are all bleeding while Leah tests the power of her voice. Needless to say, we hope this particular phase passes very quickly.

We are very much looking forward to Thanksgiving this week. Leah is such a good eater and Momma cannot wait to see her reaction to such a huge meal and new treats like pumpkin pie. Popel will be joining us for the weekend, and we just finished a visit with Grammy this past weekend. Lots of spoiling is going on in our house, that’s for sure. :)

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Trick-or-Treat!

Here's Miss Kitty, decked out for her first trick-or-treating experience! Everyone knows we're dog people but she sure is the most adorable little kittycat I've ever seen. :) She wasn't too thrilled about all the fuss Momma made at her costume at first. Daddy said she reminded him of Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" in his bunny suit and disgusted face. Ha!

Halloween night, we picked a nearby neighborhood based on a friend's recommendation and went around to about 5 or 6 houses before stopping. Leah seemed to enjoy the first couple of houses, especially since we saw a couple pups, but it quickly become apparent that trick-or-treating involved greeting too many strangers in a short span of time. She clung to her daddy and whined a bit. Still, that didn't stop her from blowing kisses to almost all of the homeowners who gave her candy, thus winning them over. ;)

I'm glad we took her out, even if it may not have lasted too long. It was fun to experience it and to once again see this big wide world through Leah's eyes. 

"She just loves babies."

Leah, who is so intent on being the focus of all attention possible.  Leah, who screams an ear-drum shattering shrill shriek to overcome any conversation not about Leah.  Leah, who can't stand a singular spotlight for fear that its bulb may burn out leaving her temporarily in the dark, so she insists on multiple spotlights, or rather, the moon and the stars and the sun and every other light emitting or reflecting heavenly body to shine upon the brilliance that is Leah.

This same, humble child "just loves babies."  This statement was uttered proudly by her care-giver on Thursday.  Sure its cute when she cradles her baby dolls. She mocks feeding them, wiping their faces, and changing their diapers.  She nurtures these bundles of joy, plastic, and cloth.  She loves them no matter how full of Chinese lead content they may be.  No one is perfect, but she loves these baby dolls, flaws and all.  This excitement translates to real babies as well.

A baby at daycare has been on the receiving end of Leah's adoration.  We're told its cute.  We have witnessed the excitement on Leah's face to see a baby.  She squeals, and says "baby" as she points at the little girl.  

Then she gets home, loses her temper at something, and those same beloved baby dolls get thrown to the floor with an inappropriate measure of force.  Mixed signals for mom and dad.

[Dan] proofread by the Mrs.

Current Stats

Leah had her 18 month checkup earlier this week. She weighs 24.2 pounds (to which Momma exclaimed, "That's all?!") and measures 33 inches tall. Her weight is in the 50-75th percentile and her height is the 75th-90th percentile. The doc says she looks great and appears to be right on track developmentally. The average vocabulary at this age is 10 words, and Leah can say about 7. If you include her animal sounds (which her pediatrician does!) then she's definitely meeting (and depending on her mood, exceeding) the 10 word mark. Yay.

Only one shot this time for the seasonal flu. She screamed and cried of course, but got over it fairly quickly once she was given a cookie. ;)

Bring on the Zombie Frogs!

Leah will be 18 months old on Saturday.  In the last year and a half, she has survived a housing crisis, a financial crisis, a gas shortage, a historic drought, a resulting water shortage, record unemployment, rising crime, record snowfall, a record flood, and a couple of Mavericks.  

So what's next?  Well, if you're religious, you might think that locusts are the next plague.  If so, you haven't seen the bugs in Georgia.  Have you ever heard that the south is a little behind the times?  The bug life is simply Jurassic.  The cute bugs are still cute, such as Ladybugs, the only difference is that they are the size of your thumb.  Maybe the next plague will be something like the river flowing blood.  Again, Georgia's dirt is red. We wouldn't know blood from yucky water anyhow.  This leaves us with frogs. Better yet, frogs raining from the sky. It happened in the Bible, or at least a weird Tom Cruise movie.  In honor of Halloween, they may as well be Zombie Frogs!

Leah was born over 540 days ago.  She had complications at birth, which caused an emergency C-section.  She spent the first couple days of her life in the hospital's NICU in an oxygen tent to help her breathing.  She has weathered more storms (health, weather, economic, societal) than she is even aware of.  She is a tough little kid; determined and independent.  She wouldn't have any problem with a swarm of undead amphibians.

Dodge's tail whacking her in the face is a slightly different story.

[Dan] - or is it Frog Zombies?

My child is a . . . Super Hero!

A stand-up comic named Daniel Tosh has a bit about a real-life child who can't feel pain, and how he would make a terrible parent for someone with this condition. Mock calling his wife, he says, "Honey, I broke our daughter's arm an hour ago, and she hasn't tapped out yet.  Our child is a superhero!"  

Fortunately, Leah does not put her dad in this situation of mistaking a life-threatening disability with super strength. (He would fail that test.)  Unfortunately, Leah has a different super power.  Well, two powers, but we've exhausted the 'Blinking is all the sleep she needs' power.  Her second power is the ability to be loud. No, make that very LOUD. Leah screams.  When she's happy, she screams. Its earth-shattering.  When she's sad, she screams, but she actually builds it up.  Her mouth will hang open, and its the quiet before the storm.  Then, all that air she just sucked up, comes projectile vomiting out in a torrent of ear-splitting decibels.  Her superhero name should be Banshee or The Deafener.  Her costume should have a bullhorn on the belt buckle.

Life with Leah and two energetic dogs is a constant ballet.  When she starts her screaming, we have to tend to her, and at the same time, run to make sure that Dodge isn't filling the tub while Hud is grabbing an electric appliance to bring in the bathroom.  Their poor doggy ears.

[By Dan]-"huh? say again."