new hilarities

haha, let me tell you about sparrow's listening skills. she pretends a LOT that she doesn't know what we are saying to her, and yet, we can be praying this long elaborate prayer, and she is listening so well that as soon as we say "in jesus' name," she says, "amen" right on cue! every time! crazy.

sparrow can say one, two, three! in sequence, and when she hears someone say "one," she usually concludes with "wee!" (three) and then starts again, "one...wee!" she thinks this is great fun because it usually comes with getting daddy to jump around or toss her around or lift her up to fly. she also walks around humming "A B D, A B D," which is of course abc, slightly mispronounced.

today i took her to farmer's market as usual, and we have been eating a lot of berries lately. well she was already stained red all over by the time i put her in the car; i wanted her to eat something a little lighter in color for the ride home, and she always wants to eat in the car. anyway, i decided on a yellow plum-thing and started biting bits off to hand back to her. she ate one piece, but mistrustingly, and when i tried to give her another piece she said loudly, "no! ...beiiyy!" (berry) wow. making her feelings quite clear. oh well. more plum for me! she will stick with the strawberries, thank you!

one of the coolest things she's learned in the past week or two is to take her dirty diaper once we are done changing her, and put it in the bucket in the bathroom. it is such a nice thing. and she has never even tried to throw it into the adjoining toilet either! at this rate, she really will be fully earning her place in the household by the time she is seven!

another one of her recently acquired skills is walking backward. she has been working on this for a few weeks (something thomas taught her), but has just recently gotten pretty good at it. she gets this little taut smile on her face and mischevious eyes, and starts taking little marching steps-in-place while saying "back back back back..." and moves backward, usually landing with her butt on her mattress and then bouncing up and down for a few moments with her short little wispy hair flying upward. it was really funny when she was first learning the backward thing because when she would get under pressure, like when we would ask her to demonstrate it for us, she would get too excited and end up always going forward with her little marching steps, instead of back.

the other day thomas and sparrow found a discarded kiddie-doll stroller on one of their walks. sparrow loved it sooooo much that thomas at last acquiesced and brought it home. he cleaned it up, and now she plays with it all the time, pushing it around and sitting in it and playing with the little buckle. the evening after she first got it, i had set her stuffed piggy that liz gave her into the stroller and we buckled him in. then i asked her, "are you going to take piggy for a walk around the block?" immediately she pushed piggy away and...straight to her box of blocks! i was baffled by her confidence and sincerity at which she followed my suggestion! not only that, but she picked out all the colored blocks from the stash and put them in piggy's lap. so nice!

on wednesday we went sailing with dave and danielle. i was BUSHED from the drammamine i had taken, and completely nauseous the whole time on top of it! would i have been less sick-feeling, or more, if i hadn't taken the medicine? sparrow LOVED it. she kept pointing and saying "wa-du! wa-du!" and wanting to stand right on the edge of the boat looking over. luckily we had borrowed a kid life jacket from the reeves and had stuffed her into it the minute we got on the boat. about halfway through the fun, she got so tired that she fell asleep on me, and of course, slept like a baby until we got back to land. she has experienced so much already, in her short little life! my first time sailing--almost 26 years old. her first time sailing--not yet 16 months. she's been to at least ten weddings already, too, and four countries.

HAAAAHAAHaaaa, do i have a treasure of a video to share with you today! thomas taught sparrow the greatest move ever! i laughed my head off at the dinner table.
i hope this link works.