G, today. Just because.

Today Greta wore her light up shoes.  She struts around like she owns the town.  Since the shoes light up her path, it does seem like she owns the town.

She came with me to a follow-up appointment with Dr. Razzle: we pushed elevator buttons, the nurses gave her cookies, we saw the “shiss” (fish) tank, and she melted hearts.  Mine included.  Dr. Razzle looked at Greta and back to me and said, “See, this is why we have to keep you (Jen) here for a really, really long time.”  Yes, Dr. Razzle.  YES, indeed.

She knows what our car looks like and yells, “Der it is!” when she sees it in the parking lot.  When I buckle her in to her carseat, she inevitably points at “Manen’s” (Maren’s) empty carseat and we have to talk about where Maren is and when we will see her again.  As we drive around she yells (yells), “Home!” when we near our house.  “Store!” when we pull into a parking lot.  She’s observant.  It reminds me of how Maren used to yell, “Nugget store!” every time we passed McDonalds.  Nugget store still makes me laugh.

I taught her how to make a grouchy face, and how to make a happy face.  She will make them on command.  Scrunched up fake angry faces on eighteen-month-olds are adorable.  (I did this with Maren, too.  It started when Maren was throwing a fit, and this alternating happy/grouchy tactic would distract her.  It works with Greta too.)

She knows how to take off her own shoes and put them in the closet when we get home.  She loves to throw things in the trash (oddly, she only does this with actual trash–I am lucky.)  She likes to get the mail, and then read the mail on the family room floor; she’s got a thing for catalogues.

She wants to eat yogurt and goldfish crackers.  I also got her to eat apple slices, grapes, six bites of puree peas, peanut butter crackers, a bowl of applesauce and baby cereal, three bites of baby mystery puree, and Cheerios.  She is such a weird eater.  She’s picky with both flavor and texture and won’t try anything new.  Oy.

She loves to sing.  Twinkle, Twinkle and The ABC Song are her favorites; she makes it about two-thirds of the way through each.  Lately she stops singing and finishes (mid-song) with “Good job Getta!  Good job!” with lots of enthusiastic clapping.  This weekend we woke her up in the middle of the night to drive home from a friends house.  Maren was asleep in the back of the car, and I was quiet: out of nowhere she sang a soft rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle to herself in the darkness of the backseat.  It was so sweet.

She talks all the time.

“I want it.”

“Paciblankiepaciblankie.”

“Hold you,” when she wants me to pick her up.

At night I tuck her in, pray over her, and tell her how much I love her and normal Mommy-loves-you things.  Almost every night as I reach her door to get to the hallway she calls after me, “Yo you.”  (Love you.)  Be still my heart.  It’s all I can do to not grab her up in my arms and hold her all night long.

I get unprompted “I love you Mommy”‘s from my baby.  Life is grand.  I am so blessed.  Please Jesus, let us share a lifetime of happy days.