"It's raining outside! It's going to be Christmas! And there's going to be presents. For me! And for you! And Dad! And Pop! And for everybody! It's going to be ALL Christmas ALL day!"Bard recently mentioned that I should do a post focusing on each child in the family, telling about them and their abilities and interests. The two-year-old Baby's words this morning gave me the perfect jumping-off point for a post about her.
Have you ever seen the movie Prancer? The movie about the girl and her quest to save one of Santa's reindeer? You know how the little girl sings Christmas songs all year long?
That's The Baby.
Last year during the Christmas season, while we were shopping for gifts, she formed her first full sentences by singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Shortly afterwards, she added Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She sings them quite regularly.
Actually, she just loves to sing. She sings her ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider and She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain, though she wants me to skip the first couple of verses and get right to the part about chopping off the rooster's head and wearing pink pajamas. This summer, I got her accustomed to playing in the water at the lake by singing Comin' 'Round the Mountain, replacing the verses with things like, "She'll be swimmin' round in circles when she comes," and "she'll be kicking her feet when she comes." We swirled and danced and kicked around the lake, singing, blowing bubbles in the water, jumping up and down, and it soon became her favorite game.
The Baby's a smart one. She knows her ABC's and her numbers to twenty (except for that little bit about fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, which all sound pretty much the same coming from her little mouth), knows most of her colors, and can recite "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" all the way to "my platter's empty!" but she prefers to stop at "9, 10" because she favors the "begin again" ending to the "big fat hen" middle.
Her first word was "duck," taught to her by her big sister Bard. The Baby had a little yellow duck on the bottom of her ruby slippers and learned to identify it with Bard's excellent coaching. Her second word was "boogie," which came with much force, the "b" getting stuck behind her lips until it would finally burst forward, the "oogie" rushing quickly behind, with the "ie" rising up an octave. That word came courtesy of Houdin.
Before she was verbal, she would get so excited about her surroundings that she would rotate her hands and feet in unison, round and round and round and round, attracting the attention of little old ladies everywhere we went.
Her favorite pasttimes are:
- nursing
- watching Franklin the Turtle on video
- drawing armless, bodiless people with a pink marker
- catching and holding baby chicks
- swinging on the swing
- picking flowers from the garden
- running down the hill skipping "like Carrie" (from Little House on the Prairie)
- eating broccoli, yogurt, carrots and cottage cheese
- playing with her siblings
- pointing out butterflies
- sleeping with mama and daddy
- carrying around her Kiki Cat she built with her grandma at Build-a-Bear
- and is currently learning to use the potty (her idea, after watching Once Upon a Potty about four hundred times, much to her siblings' dismay).
Oh, and singing Christmas songs, of course.
Now she requires my attention. Kiki Cat is missing, and life just can't go on until she's found.
