21 months

(Yeh, I forgot to take pictures last night, so I took one after she fell asleep. Maybe if you all behave yourselves today, I'll take some tonight [because that way if I forget again, I can blame it on you guys instead of myself].)

Today, Ari is 21 months old. Which means we're only 3 months away from the Great and Terrible Twos.

She is becoming so much more social now--it's like she is starting to understand the way people interact with each other and the way people play together. For example, it used to always be one of us initiating a game with her, but now, she starts the game herself. She flop onto the floor and stare at you until you realize that she wants you to tickle her or wrestle with her. She'll cover her face with her hands, waiting patiently for you to say, "Where's Ari?" so she can squeal, "Boo!" (She doesn't always get the "Peek-a-" before the "boo" but we're working on that.)

She loves people--and especially babies. Any time she sees a baby, she has to yell "bee-bee!" She's hit-or-miss with saying hi to people, but she'll almost always say bye. She still seems to be shy when someone else makes the first move--in other words, if an adult says hi to her first, she'll just stare and sometimes even draw back a little. But then there are times where she'll see a person who's a fairly good distance away, and she'll shout an enthusiastic "Hi!", sometimes repeating it until she gets the person to look at her or say hi back. So she's social--on her own terms.

She is also slowly but surely learning her manners. She says "please" quite often now without any prompting. Sometimes she'll even say it before we've figured out what she's asking for, as though adding a sweet "peez" onto the end of her rambling will help us get what she's saying. We're still working on "thank you" ("ank oo"), and even though she doesn't always say it when we ask her to, she'll jump out with it randomly (like repeating it after me when I say it to the cashier in the fast-food drive-thru).

We've taught her the concept of whispering and saying "shh" when someone is sleeping, and she now applies that to anyone with their eyes closed. She has a new picture book with animal pictures in it, and there is a kitten with its eyes closed. Every time she comes to that page, she says "shh." Yes, because you know, if we're not quiet enough, we just might wake that kitten up.

Tony took her to the mall the other day, and in the family restroom/lounge area, there is a carpet with a bunch of kids' faces on it. Ari spent a few minutes carefully pointing out the eyes, noses and mouths on the faces, and said "shh" anytime she found a face with its eyes closed. Then, before Tony could stop her, she bent down and kissed one of the faces. I tried to focus on how cute that was, instead of "Oh, nooooo, germs!"

She still loves Nemo, and even though she doesn't watch it every day, she still loves to talk about it. I woke her up from a nap the other day and as I was changing her, she started chanting, "Ahh ohh ahh eee" and saying "mine, mine." She hadn't watched the movie at all that day, and I wasn't saying anything about it to her. I guess she's just becoming like all the rest of us who quote movie lines as part of normal conversation.

She also sings to herself. Not sure what she's singing, but sometimes it sounds like she's singing her vowel sounds: "Ahh, eee, eye, ohhh, oooh." The other day in the car, I was singing along with "La Vie Boheme" from Rent and during the part of song where they sing "La vie Boheme" over and over, I could have sworn I heard Ari trying to sing/say that phrase. A couple days later, I made a point of putting that CD in again, and she did it again. I suppose this means I need to start listening to kid-friendly CDs in my car.

She loves being outside, and could care less that it's barely spring and still pretty chilly outside. She loves the playground, but also doesn't mind just riding in her stroller and pointing out trees and birds to me. As we walk, when she sees a tree close to the sidewalk, she'll yell, "Touch it!" or "I touch it!" while extending her arm. But every time I slow down and bring her close to the tree, she'll yank her arm back quickly and murmur, "No." And of course I call her a sissy.

She's learning new words all the time, and is quite proud to show them off. Right now she's calling all dogs "Sasha" (which sounds more like "shah-shah"), which is pretty funny to us, since Ivan is her favorite dog and Sasha pretty much ignores her. Another favorite word is "fishy" (pronounced "shishy") and she loves to point out the fish on her sippy cup, and the toy fish she has in her pile of bath toys. And she insists on getting the proper recognition for identifying objects like that--meaning she will repeat the word over and over until she's sure you have understood exactly what she's talking about.

This morning I dropped her off with the babysitter, and when I leaned down to ask for my goodbye hug, instead of making me beg, she came right over and buried her head in my shoulder. Then she kissed me twice, hugged me again, kissed me a few more times. Then she said "eye" (as she poked me in the eye) and "nose" while touching my nose, as though this was all part of the normal goodbye routine. When I stood up, she promptly said "goodbye," waved (in the very precise new way that she does), and hustled me out the door by trying to close the door on me.