Phrases often heard at our house:

“Mama! Where you go Mama?!” (or Zoe, Elmo, Monkey, Adam, G, Dada, Sadie, or whoever else she’s looking for)

“No!” Said with complete conviction, often accented by a stamped foot or thrown object.

“Yeah OK” or “Yep.” Never yes, only yeah or yep.

“By self.” That’s when she doesn’t want help and wants to do whatever it is by herself.

“Hug? Snuggle? Rock a minute?” With her increased independence, Clare is asking for more hugs, cuddles and reassurance. I love it and she always gets loves when she asks for them (except if she’s using it as a sleep diversionary tactic).

Oh the toddler silliness! Clare is endlessly singing (see video evidence below), dancing, strutting, and just generally wiggling in new ways. Today she walked out of the kitchen doing some type of imitation of a chicken strut – I have no idea where that came from, I think it’s just an experiment in physical movement. It’s pretty funny to watch.

Most fun of all is to see her imagination develop and watch her begin make believe play. Her babies and animals regularly get rides on her Wheely Bee toy, they always get meals (often times sharing some of her milk or food), are put down for naps, and last night she insisted that I include Monkey in our bedtime story because it was “Monkey night-night too.” She’s also started having conversations with them and I’ll overhear her saying “Look Baby, airplane” or asking “read book Kitty?”

Lastly, here’s a video I took last night during dinner. Clare has a bit of a pesto face, but she was agreeable to singing on camera so I kept rolling. I particularly like the part of the tape at the end where I’m trying to get her to eat more green beans (unsuccessfully).