Bye-bye (Anna)

It's getting harder and harder to get Emma out of the door. She insists on saying bye bye to as many inanimate objects as possible as we walk out, and has to make eye contact with each of them. So the walk down the hallway can take five minutes while she says bye-bye to the chair,a pair of socks, the mirror, our sneakers, the wall, the door, the floorboards, any clothes that are hanging around, the letter box, the wall...you get the picture. It's a bit like "Goodnight Moon".

If there's anything with a face on it, it's even harder. She says bye bye, but then has to run through her "face vocab" - nose, eyes, ears, teeth, tongue, cheek, etc, sometimes several times. ("Yes, little one. It's STILL a nose. Just like it was the last 20 times you asked...")

And she has developed more emotional needs as well. At bed time a week ago, she suddenly decided it was extremely important to cuddle her bunny and pull her blanket up (both of which she had previously ignored). Then, last night, she wouldn't sleep until I had kissed the bunny goodnight on its nose as well as hers. She did make it easy for me to figure out, holding the bunny up to my face and saying "Mmmmwhhma pliz" until I kissed it.

Her vocab is exploding - new words every day, and she has the most wonderful giggle in the world. Neither talking nor giggling are things she'll do with a camera in her face, so we'll just have to enjoy the moment and not worry too much about capturing it for prosterity.

We are torn between wanting her to keep getting older so we can see what else she has in store for us, and wanting her to stay this age forever.