Babpah Babpah -- Anna's talking skills

Anna's been working hard on her listening skills and tonight during our date night, I heard her working on her talking skills for the first time. For over the past month, Anna has been listening and responding to many questions and statements. Every day she seems to pick up something new. Tonight after her bath while Mommy was at water aerobics (Yes, less than two weeks before she is due Mommy is still doing water aerobics!) Anna and I were watching Dora the Explorer.

During Dora, when she needs something (like a towel tonight) they sing a song that goes "Backpack, Backpack." Knowing this from when my niece was younger, I started singing along which thrilled Anna. A couple of minutes later she looked at me and said, "Babaa." At first, I thought this was the "Buh-Bah" she has been calling Mommy instead of "Momma." So, I asked her, "Momma?" She said no and said, "Babpah." I thought for another second and said, "Backpack?" She said, "Yea, Babpah Babpah!" She was so excited and kept saying it. So I went and got her backpack and said, "backpack." She then wanted to wear it which i let her and she walked around saying "Babpah."

Here is a month old picture of Anna wearing her "Babpah"...

Tonight's date night with Anna

Tonight, Anna and I ate at the delicious Andy's Cheesesteaks and Cheeseburgers. Then, we took a trip to Target to return a bathing suit and buy some goodies for our upcoming trip and plane ride. We bought Crayola color wonder markers and paper, a beach ball, and a portable DVD player. Last time we flew, we used Heather's laptop to play movies for Anna. Her laptop was just too large with Anna in a confined space. The good news is I got the DVD player at $40 below the price it was listed at because of an incorrect sign. But, based on the ratings that this product has on Target.com...do we open it or return it? The product has an average guest rating of 2 stars out of 5 and out of 13 reviews, got 3 good reviews, 2 ok reviews, and 8 bad reviews. Not sure what to do...

Interestingly enough, all the inexpensive (<$100) portable DVD players at Target have horrible ratings. So, perhaps its just that expectations are too high?

Sick date night with Anna

Tonight Anna laid on me on the couch as we watched Max and Ruby on Noggin. She is still recovering from her stomach flu as am I, so neither of us were active. After an hour of that, at 7 PM, I asked her if she was ready for bed. She nodded and went right for the stairs, up the stairs, into her room, and onto the futon in her room to be read to before bed. I can't believe how much she has grown up to be able to put herself to bed when she is tired. Amazing...

Melissa and Doug Chunky Puzzles

Tonight for our date night, we went out and bought another Melissa and Doug Chunky Wooden Puzzle at BAM!. We had the Chunky Farm puzzle and added the Chunky shapes puzzle.



I love these puzzles because they are educational (shapes and animals), provide Anna with lots of entertainment, and get her brain to think. 90% of the time, she can get the shape or animal to the right spot and about 5% of the time she can get it in to that spot. We love them and highly recommend them.

Anna coloring

This morning Heather had a seminar at our church she does the first Saturday of every month. During that, I get to watch my darling little girl who has not been feeling so well. So, I decided we would take a trip to Target first to handle some of the odds and ends that I knew we needed to do. Also, I was intending to look for something relaxing she and I could do together this morning. The relaxing thing I picked was to try coloring. As far as I know, this was Anna's first real time coloring. So, I bought some Crayola Beginnings Tadoodles Crayon Buddies. We had a blast and here are the pictures to show her drawing. She overall preferred her left hand again, making us think she is a leftie like her Mimi.

The Rice Pudding Dance

Tonight's installment of date nights with Daddy is about sharing desserts. Anna and I like to share snacks and desserts, and I am often more liberal with letting Anna try things like chocolate and ice cream than Heather...so we have fun. One thing Anna and I both like is rice pudding. I previously talked about the ice cream dance...well today I have a video of the rice pudding dance. The ice cream dance is slightly more excited than this...but this is exciting:


While I don't get quite as excited for rice pudding, my heart jumps in excitement for my little girl and those things which make her this happy :-)

Date nights with Anna

Anna is now 13 months and Daddy and her have date nights when Mommy has plans. Last night was one of those nights, and we decided just to stay in and play. Anna was really busy last night, spending 5-10 minutes on each task before moving on to the next task. They were important things like playing with special toys, pushing around her shopping cart, or pulling all of the DVDs our of the cabinet and putting them back.

I can't forget Anna's favorite playtoy, Cassie. She loves everything about Cassie. Cassie makes her laugh without even doing anything. Cassie also takes a lot of abuse and doesn't even snap at Anna in return. Cassie goes crazy when we have guests over, but she really is an angel around Anna and we couldn't be happier with how she is with kids.