Just an Ari report *EDIT*

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Guess who, just today, learned how to climb out of her crib?

Life as I know it is OVER.

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I feel like it's been a while since I've done an Ari update, so here goes.

First of all, she is recovering from that nasty cold quite nicely. She still sounds a bit hoarse, but she is definitely back to her usual, mischievous self. And I swear, because she went a few days without eating much, I think she has lost weight--when I put diapers on her, I can overlap the sticky tabs a lot more than I used to be able to. Like this kid can really afford to lose weight.

She's officially learned a couple new words--one of them being "kitty." Mary, the babysitter, has a cat, so that's obviously where she picked it up from. She enunciates it so carefully when she says it, too--with 2 very distinct syllables. Every time we're at home and I try to get her to say it, she'll look at one of the dogs, and then look back at me with this slightly puzzled face, as if to say, "Uh, Mom? That's not a kitty."

Her other new word is "me," which she uses to tell us that she wants something. It's always said with great urgency and drama, as if she will die in a matter of moments if she does not get that thing right now. And she never says it just once--it's always a string of "me me me me me," increasing in volume and intensity until she gets whatever it is she wants. I suppose this is the precursor to "mine." It's incredibly cute and annoying all at the same time.

She's been practicing a lot of new sounds, one being the "s" sound. She says "iss" and "ish" a lot. Sometimes it seems like she's trying to say "this" because she is sometimes pointing at something as she says it. And sometimes it sounds a lot like a certain 4-letter "s" word. I suppose we are nearing that stage where we have to start being careful what we say in front of her.

Even though she doesn't know a whole lot of words yet, she definitely understands a lot. If you tell her to go get something or ask her where something is, 90% of the time, she will look around and then bring you the object. She does this for her bottle, binky, cup, Belle, our cell phones, the remotes, etc. I'm sure some of it may have to do with us helping her out by pointing at the object, but a lot of the time, it will be something out of sight (around a corner or something) and she will go find it. And because she's so good at it, it's become a game--we keep throwing in new objects, to see if she can figure out what we mean. She usually takes the task quite seriously (putting on her Very Serious face), which makes it even more entertaining for us. We tried to teach the dogs to fetch, but neither one of them ever really got it. I knew there was a reason we had a kid.

We've been working on body parts with her, and she can find her belly and her mouth so far. If you ask her to find her nose, she usually points at her mouth again. Close, kid, but no.

She's also learned how to play "So big"--you ask her, "How big is Ari?" and she'll raise her hands high over her head as you exclaim, "So big!" And then she grins this cheesy grin like she's all proud of herself. Listen, kiddo, when you can actually say the "So big!" part by yourself, then I'll be impressed.

She gives hugs more regularly now, and even kisses sometimes, but the kissing thing seems to still be causing some confusion. The other night, I asked her to give me a kiss goodnight, and pointed at my cheek to show her where. Her response was to take her tiny little finger and poke me in the cheek. I can see how she would draw that conclusion based on what I was doing, so apparently, we will have to think of some other way to get her to give kisses.

Tony called me today, and said, "Your daughter--" (any sentence that starts with "your daughter" instead of "our daughter" spells trouble) "--has learned how to unbuckle the straps on her highchair." He said he took the tray off the highchair and took it in the kitchen to clean it off, and when he turned around, she was standing up in the highchair, peeking over the back. I just told him as long as she doesn't figure out how to get out of her carseat, we'll be fine. (I hope I didn't just jinx us.)