Deception

I was upstairs with little bug and she started crying when I closed the gate to the stairs (the one that prevents her from falling down the stairs). She heard daddy's voice downstairs and started saying, "da-da". I tried to get her to walk down the stairs with me and she kept saying "no" and running away. So I left the gate open since I'm faster than her and can usually prevent disaster, and the crying stopped. Crisis avoided, or so I thought.

We were playing hide & seek (which consists of little bug standing next to me and then yelling "boo"), and she grabbed my pants and dragged me to the doors to the washer/dryer. Keep in mind that these are right next to the stairs/gate that is not open. She opens the doors to the washer and pushes my legs against the washer. So I figure this is her hint to get some laundry done. I was suspicious of her being so helpful. I watched her slyly back away towards the stairs, she yelled "bye, c-ya" and jetted for the stairs. I caught her of course, but I'm shocked that she's already trying to outsmart me. She clearly thought if I was busy doing laundry, she could book it down the stairs by herself.

Which brings me to her next trick. Apparently she can walk down the stairs by herself (holding onto the rail for part of the way, and just walking for the other part). She got down two flights of stairs by herself today, with me in catchers position just in case.

Happy New Year...a little late

In the full spirit of little bug's delayed sense of reacting to things, she's just now learned how to say "Happy New Year". Last night we were with friends celebrating a birthday, and at one point everyone was quiet and she yelled, "Happy New Year"...so we all made a toast!

Little Miss Independent

We were a little worried (okay, I was worried) about how little bug would react to going back to the nanny's house when we went back to work on Monday. Apparently while daddy was setting up her pack & play, little bug was playing in the toy room with one of the girls. When he went in to say good-bye to little bug, she freaked out and said no, no, no daddy and physically pushed him out of the room. She thought he was trying to get her to leave. So clearly, she had a much easier time going back to the nanny's house than daddy & I had going back to work!

Awesome!

We've had an inundation of new words lately in multiple languages. As if understanding toddler speak wasn't hard enough, little bug is speaking Spang-Lish-Darin. When she says thank you, she says "ta-you, xie-xie". When she says shoe she says "sue, pappo". I'm just waiting for the day that she rattles something off to me in Spanish and I have to go to the Google translator to figure it out, at least I understand the limited Mandarin we've taught her.

She also calls Daddy by his first name. She stands up and says "daddy, daddy..." and if he doesn't answer she yells his first name until he comes over to her. Her other favorite word is "awesome!". I'll hear her in the living room yell, Awesome!, and find her stacking her toys up. Tonight when I put her in her booster seat at the table, she looked at me sighed and said "nice". As if to say, nice dinner mommy!

Her not so cool new thing to do is to take off her clothes. We found her playing with her spin & crash racing set by herself. I was pretty impressed that she turned it on by herself, until I found her in nothing but her diaper with her shirt and pants laying on the floor next to her. It'll be not so awesome if she pulls this trick in public.