Random Cuteness

Just a few of Those-Cute-Things-You-Don't-Want-To-Forget-But-You-Will-If-You-Don't -Write-Them Down quirks that every child has. 

Right now Sam's most favorite thing to do is "Baaa" every time he sees a sheep picture.  He can recognize a sheep in several of the books we read- real photographs, cartoonish ones, fuzzy ones, and even black ones, like the one in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle.  The child has never seen a sheep in person though so I don't know where the fascination with this particular animal came from.  He is trying so hard to "Mooo" like a cow too, but he has a hard time changing from the "mmm" sound to the "ooo" sound so it comes out a little funny but it is at least the same sound every time. 

Sam definitely has a thing for animals right now.  He gets so excited when we get home from daycare, he'll sign "dog" over and over when he first sees our dog Bella (although he can and does say her name).  We keep several photos in frames on our fireplace mantle, including one of our dog that was put down last fall.  Sam always wants us to show him that photo (I'm sure he understands that he knows the other people and dog- Mom, Dad, Anna and Bella- but that one is different because he doesn't remember our dog Benelli) and tries to say his name.  It's kind of adorable to hear him say " 'Nelli" when for so long I dreamed of my children saying that and I thought it would never happen when we had to have him put down. 

Sam's also been pointing at everything and either asking we name it or give it to him by saying "That." and making a pointing or grabbing motion. We're trying to get him to learn "please" instead so it sounds a little less demanding!  Sam went through a phase where he liked to pull out wipes and put them in his mouth (ew) but thankfully he's starting to stop that.  Now he likes to give us wipes when we are changing Anna to "help."  I like this much better!

Anna has been spontaneously kissing our noses lately.  Her wet sloppy nose kisses are goobery, but adorable all the same.  She knows where her belly button is, and likes to explore mom's belly button too when you ask where it is.  We've been practicing walking with her a lot, and she loves to go from Mom to Dad- but instead of turning around, she likes to walk backwards (holding hands for balance) to Dad so she can walk to Mom again.  I think she's just about as good walking backwards as she is going forwards!  We have also been letting Sam and Anna try out utensils and Anna gets SO ridiculously happy with herself if she actually manages to get food in her mouth from the fork or spoon. 

And one last cute thing to share:  Anna also used to pop up in the morning with a smile and say "hi" to us when we went in to get them up for the day.  Now every day Anna pops up with a smile and says "all done" to us- then turns and says hi to her brother, instead.

Just some tidbits of our recent happenings at 14 months old!