Since my last update is about moving TO Washington, I figure it's about time for an update ;p
If you haven't heard, we're moving back to Montreal in February, and we're thrilled! We just had to take a step back and experience something different to realize how good we had it, that the grass isn't greener on the other side (well, the grass in Washington is literally greener, but that means there's more rain...:p) We haven't given up on our goals of growing our own food and Ian making his own games, but we realized we need more time and planning to make that work for the long term.
Now on to Meridian, who is blowing our minds and melting our hearts daily with her amazing development and personality. When we moved to Washington soon after she turned 18 months, her vocabulary was huge, but she wasn't really saying any sentences. Over the course of the last few months, however, we've been able to communicate and actually have conversations with her! She is now able to put together concepts to make her own sentences. She started out by noticing what everyone in the house was doing, listening to us put it into words, and then repeating it. ("Mosse went to chop wood"; "E went to work"; "Patchip went night-night"). At first, she was a little confused, because we would tell her things like, "Patrick went night-night; Annie went night-night too," and she extrapolated that to mean she had to add "too" to the end of every sentence. She eventually figured that out, though.
Then she started saying, "C'mere Mama," "C'mere Papa," etc., whenever she wants a hug, which is frequently. She has even said stuff like, "C'mere, funflower (sunflower) seeds," and tried to hug a handful of them to her chest.
Then she started putting words and concepts together to make her own (mostly gramatically-correct) sentences based on her own observations and ideas. For example:
"Mama went to shut the gate."
"Mama's wearing Papa's jacket."
"That's Patchip's kombucha." (If someone has a drink that she knows isn't for her, then that must be "their" kombucha. So Patrick's beer was his "kombucha.")
"Papa taking a shower." (Just from hearing water flowing from another room.) Then: "Papa all done with shower!" after hearing the water turn off. This morning, we were all lying in bed, and we heard the water turn on in our neighbor's apartment. She looked around to confirm that we 3 were all present, and then decided, "Somebody take a shower!"
"The unicorn has black eyes."
"Toutou threw up!" (In a very concerned voice)
"Uh-oh, wake up, Movie!" (after she accidentally paused our movie. We had never referred to movies as sleeping or waking up, so she was making her own connections)
During our Christmas trip, she started saying, "I love you," which has of course melted all our hearts. :) She didn't stop with, "I love you, Mama," "I love you Papa," "I love you Scout," etc. She has said things like, "I love you, chip," and "I love you, Mama's armpits."
She also loves to go through her lists of people she knows or loves. For awhile, this would just be, "Annie, Patchip, Orrin, E..." in a sing-song voice, but after meeting or re-meeting her family, the list just goes on and on. And we introduced the concept of people living in different places, so now she'll say things like,
"Gigi in Texas," "Oldemor in Tennessee," "Grandpa in Texas," "Mama in Oyyimpia," etc. But somehow she has added in her own touches, such as, "Chicken poop in Texas." Whatever floats her boat, I guess ;p
She is also learning to count, and she can recite all the numbers from one to ten. She can actually count up to five objects at a time, but sometimes she gets too excited and counts to ten, even if there's only two or three of something. :p
She's also into doing This Little Piggy, but since we're crazy hippies ;), we taught her a vegan version that goes, "This little piggy went shopping; this little piggy stayed home; this little piggy ate tofu; this little piggy had none; and this little piggy went weeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeee weeeeee, all the way home." So as far as she
knows, pigs eat tofu :p
The cutest thing is that she doesn't know how to say Meridian, so she started calling herself Minnow. She also talks about herself in third-person, so she'll say things like,
"Minnow hold the phone... Minnow talk to Grandma on the phone...Minnow hung up Grandma!"
"Minnow fed the ducks. Happy ducks! Happy Minnow!"
"Minnow wants to wear rain-elbow (rainbow) pants"
"Minnow's boots are in the car."
"Minnow wants a sammich"
"Minnow went peepee in the potty. Minnow all done in the potty. Good job, Minnow!"
"Minnow be right back," as she leaves the room. Then a couple seconds later she'll return and say, "Minnow came back!"
"Minnow puts pants on self."
"Minnow all done with the carseat!"
"Minnow is in the mirror.
"Tie Minnow's hair back"
"Minnow draw circles on the paper."
"Minnow rub Papa's back" (And then she will rub his back. She just volunteers this all the time, it's adorable. She also volunteers to rub her stuffed animals' backs, the pets' backs, etc...)
"Minnow has an owie." And since she still loves to play peek-a-boo, she'll cover her owie, and go, "Where'd Minnow's owie go?" Or, she'll hide one of her hands and say, "Where'd Minnow's that hand go?" to indicate a specific hand. (It's so fun to see her figure out how to put sentences together correctly).
"Minnow tooted!" She has also tried variations such as "Minnow's butt tooted," and "Minnow tooted with the butt," both of which should be added to the vernacular, if you ask me :p
She's also potty-trained now! She had been doing so well before our trip, then got out of habit while travelling, but immediately upon getting back, she started using the potty exclusively (although now, she prefers the toilet). We even took a day-long trip along the Olympic Peninsula without any diapers. Pretty audacious of us :p But we brought her potty and she did great, with no accidents! So she's done with diapers, but she still likes to put them on her dolls. We're trying to convince her that they're too big for diapers now, too :p
Another post-vacation development is that she started loving to read books again, yay! She's really interactive with them, too--she'll point out what's going on in the pictures, and talk about what's going on in the book. She loves to read along with the Lorax. Her favorite lines to say are, "Ask him, HE knows," and "Somebody lifted the Lorax away." And when it talks about the wind smelling sour when it blows, she'll sniff the page, and then blow on it :) She also noticed that in one of the pictures, "The horse pulls the wagon," and "somebody chops wood."
We were reading, "Are You My Mother?" about the baby bird who goes looking for his mother, and we asked her to read it for us. She looked at the first page and said, "Baby bird goes away.... Bird comes back," which is a pretty good summary of the book, actually. Then we asked her what birds eat, and she said, "Birds...eat...worms."
She also loves this series of Winnie the Pooh books we have, each of which have a different-colored cover. So when she wants to read a certain one, she'll go, "Read the Winnie the Pooh book orange" or "Read the Winnie the Pooh book yellow."
Another favorite book of hers is called, "The (Not so) Perfect Fairy." It's short, so she will recite the summary of each page, and she waves goodbye to Granny when Granny leaves to go shopping. Then there's a part where the fairy is running down the stairs, and Minnow will say, "Fairy holds the rail!" because holding the rail has been drilled into her head so many times :p
She also points out all the things in Goodnight Moon, and will say goodnight to them.
A couple other cute things: She's really trying to do everything we do (and more!) and she gets frustrated when she can't. So when she's trying to buckle or unbuckle something, or turn a button on or off, she'll go, "Press REAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLL hard!" and start shaking from the effort, :p
Also, she's developed an intolerance for our singing (no surprise there). So whenever we start to sing, she'll interject, "Turn off," in a very deadpan voice :p
Here are some of her favorites as of now (22 months):
Food: blueberries, raspberries, kombucha, strawberries, rice, noodles, broccoli, apples, bananas, clementines (she calls them oranges), regular oranges (which she calls big oranges), apples, oily bread, chocolate soymilk
Books: The Lorax, The (Not So) Perfect Fairy, Hooper Humperdink (which she pronounces perfectly, it's so cute...and she now points to Hooper and tells us that he's sad), Winnie the Pooh books, Goodnight Moon, Are You My Mother?, Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now?, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?
Games and activities: Peek-a-boo, Swinging (she will demand that we "Fwing Minnow" for hours on end...), playing with Scout and Toutou, chasing Mama and Papa around the house, bouncing on bouncy balls, spinning on the sit 'n' spin, doing yoga, feeding the ducks, making animal noises, story time at the library, puzzles, caring for her dolls and stuffed animals, making her ponies and cars race
Clothes: Light-up Cars boots, rainbow pants, polka-dotted jacket
In other news, we're sending Scout off on a new journey in a couple days--to live with my parents. Sadly, their 15-year old chihuahua died a couple weeks ago, so they were open to getting a new friend for their pug sometime in the near future anyway, and that just happened to coincide with us deciding to move back to Montreal, so they suggested that they take Scout. We're so broken-hearted that she's leaving us, but I wouldn't do it unless I knew it was best for her--it's so hard for us finding apartments in Montreal that accept dogs, and when we do, there's often barely (if any) yard space. Not to mention how brutal the winters are...we definitely are more reluctant to walk her when it's -30 degrees, and even she seems disinterested when it's that cold. So I know she'll be happy having a steady home, with another dog friend and parents who dote on her. So it's bittersweet, but we know she'll be happy and spoiled :)
Anyway, on to the pictures! (Now with 100% less diaper tails ;))
The first set is from around Christmas (and I'm sorry for anyone we're not including in the pics--I know for example that our pictures with Grandpa Fred and Grandma Joy, and Grandpa David and Neenee, are all on their cameras; and we never got pictures with Nana :( )
These are just some pics of her around our new (temporary) apartment in Olympia.
And here are some pics of our recent day-trip up the Peninsula. It was freezing, but we're so glad we at least got to explore a little....everyone we know who is familiar with Washington advised us to not let Yelm be our only impression of the state! ;)
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