Heidi Knows Black & Cooking Sign Now

Our day started off today at 5:05am. Heidi woke up and didn't want to go back to sleep, even though it was still dark outside. I put her in bed with me, turned the tv on, and let her play with her babies while I tried to rest a few more minutes, but that didn't last for very long.

Brian sent me an email a couple of days ago saying that he was going down to Kuwait. Now, I guess he is waiting for a flight home from there. I hope he doesn't have to wait too long for a flight. Maybe he will be home tomorrow or the next day. I have been keeping my cell phone with me at all times in case he calls to tell me he is in Dallas... and is about to fly into Killeen. Then, Heidi and I can go pick him up and have him back for a little while.

I cut the grass today (front and back). Heidi was actually pretty good while I was working on the yard today. I brought out her sit-n-spin, her popcorn popper toy, her sippy cup, and a little school bell for her to play with. Sometimes, she follows me around while I am cutting the grass. Sometimes, she will play with her toys. A couple of times, I had to move her away because she was wanting to touch the lawn mover while I was using it.

Tomorrow, we are going to go to the PX to get Brian some gummi candies... just to have something special that he likes for him when he gets in. They have the cola gummis, the frog gummis, the vitamin gummis, and the licorice ones that he likes. Oh, today we also went to the commissary to get some things for him that he likes... that I just haven't been buying since he left, like: diet cream soda, grape soda, chips and salsa, peanuts, cottage cheese, the cheese that they have in star and moon shapes (easy for putting on crackers), and orange juice.

Also, whenever Heidi sees me cooking now, she says "cook" and does the sign for cooking. When she plays with her play pots and pans, she calls her pots and pans "cook" .... or maybe she is telling me that she is going to cook too, not sure.

Today, Heidi kept saying "colors... colors... colors" to me, when I finally figured out what she was wanting. She wanted her Crayons! After I got her crayons out, I was drawing on some computer paper with her. I drew a red heart, an orange circle, a green triangle, a yellow square, a black diamond, and a blue cloud. I pointed to each color and told her the name of the color and the shape. I have never told her the name for black before (or at least I don't remember telling her). After I told her the names, I asked her to find the color yellow... and she found the right color. Then, I asked her to find black, and she found it and said "black!" She had some trouble with the other colors. I guess the other colors are usually all yellow to her. I asked her a couple of times later to find black for me, and she did, so I think she knows the color black now. I guess because it is so dark and a little different.

Heidi's vocabulary continues to grow everyday. Here are a few more words I have noticed her using:

door
cook (and also does the sign for cooking)*
stars
moon
colors
black
lemon (sounds more like "lem"... and then she usually says "yummy yummy")
keys (has been saying this for a long time, just haven't added it to any lists)
rainbow (has been saying this for a while)
king (there is a king in a book that we have been looking at)

*Oh, and the word "strawberries" has definitely changed from "stubbies" to "staw-bies" now. She wants to go outside and pick strawberries every day! Today, we didn't pick any. I told her we needed to wait. I want to make sure there are several good ones for when Brian gets home, so they can go out and pick them together.

Garage Sale Day

Our day started off at 5:15 am, when Heidi woke up crying and didn't want to go back to sleep.

On post today, Wainwright Heights (our neighborhood) and Patton Park were having neighborhood garage sales, so we went. We left at about 8am. When I was getting ready to put Heidi in her car seat, I remembered that I had left her sippy cup in the kitchen, so I ran back in to get it really quick. When I came back out to the car, Heidi was in the driver's seat playing like she was driving the car. She looked so happy to be up there in the driver's seat! She still has about 15 years before she can do that yet.

It was sooo humid while we were out today. It was probably only in the 80's, but we were sweating a lot while we were out this morning because it was So Humid. I'm not looking forward to the summer, when it will be hot (and get into the 100's) and humid.

While going to garage sales, we got: a Huge trash bag full of toddler-size legos, about 6 books, a Little Tikes cube slide, and a little telephone that Heidi has been having fun playing with since I gave it to her in the car. It has a little phone book with animals on each page. She likes turning the pages and naming the animals (horse, cat, pig, cat, etc). When you pick up the phone, a voice says hello... and when you hang it up, it says good-bye. A voice also says the numbers when you press on them. Heidi repeats the numbers sometimes after she hears the phone say the number name. I think the phone was a good purchase... and it was only 50 cents!!!

I talked to Brian again today on the internet. I guess he is about ready to come home. While I was talking to him, a FedEx truck came to the house and dropped off two 19" computer monitors!!! We have two older computer monitors that are maybe 13" (not sure). That was a surprise! We have a few other packages here that Brian has had sent to the house. We will wait until he gets here to open them up. I think one or two of them are for my birthday/Mother's Day, which is next Sunday. He should be here for my birthday. YAY!

I would like to get a surprise or two for him too, but I have no idea of what to get him and don't want to waste money on something he won't want.

I want to get a rubbermaid plastic container to store the legos. We went to Wal-mart, the PX, and then to Target tonight looking for one, but I can't find the one that I want. I want the kind with the flaps on top, so I won't have to worry about a lid. I also think it would be nice because Heidi could open and close it herself... and maybe even put the legos away into the container all by herself. I did get a couple of smaller containers today, though, that were the rubbermaid brand with the flaps that open.

I think Heidi needs a bookshelf for her room. She has so many books now, but no book shelf. I saw a couple when I was at IKEA that I thought would be okay. I think Brian thinks we need to get something that is a little better quality though. We talked about her needing a bookshelf today.

Lately, she has been wanting to look at a color book that we have and name all of the pictures before she goes down for a nap or down to sleep at night. She has fun naming things like the pumpkin, the leaves, the truck, the bird, the rainbow, etc. She doesn't really identify colors yet.

Washing Off Her Tongue

Tonight when Heidi was in the bathtub, I asked her to wash off her face with her washcloth. She did, but didn't get her mouth area very well, which was pretty messy, so I told her to wash off her mouth. She took her washcloth and wiped off her tongue. I thought it was pretty cute. I guess her tongue is part of her mouth.

Also, today when I was getting clothes out of the laundry cupboard in the bathroom, I noticed two pair of Heidi's shoes were mixed in with the clothes. I thought maybe I had accidentally thrown them in there with her clothes when I was cleaning up after one of her baths or something. Tonight, when I took her clothes off to put her in the bath, I saw her go put her clothes in the door/flap to the dirty clothes cupboard. Not only did she put her dress in there that she wore today, she also put her little pink shoes in! I guess that's how her two pairs of shoes ended up in there. It is nice that she is trying to help keep things picked up!

Heidi has been doing the "be right back" sign that I kind of made up on my own and saying "back" a lot lately. Instead of waving bye with your whole hand, you just wave bye with one finger and say I'll "be right back." Heidi tells me "back... back" and does the sign whenever she is leaving me to go get a book... or to go down the hallway... or to go into her bedroom to get another toy out... etc. She has just been using it a LOT the last few days. It is really cute when she does it. I didn't know what the real sign for this was, so I just made one up a while back... and she picked it up.

We've been going outside every evening and picking strawberries. Yesterday, we picked 8 (I had one and she had the rest). Today, we picked 6. Every day, more are ripe... and every day, it looks like the birds have eaten more of them too. A couple of them have gotten Pretty Big! Most of them are usually a little smaller than the ones you normally see in the grocery store. We don't use any kind of miracle grow products or chemicals. They are bigger this year than they were last year. Maybe the older the plants are, the bigger the fruit they produce... I don't know.

I have been talking to Brian just about every day on the computer. I usually see him online in yahoo messenger sometime afternoon (before he goes to sleep)... and then at night after 9pm or so (when he is just waking up). It is nice that he has the internet in his room this time, so we can talk a lot more often than the last time he deployed. I think we will probably be getting a new tv when he gets home. He has been shopping and comparing prices online a lot lately. I guess we are going to get a 37 inch one. That is as big as our entertainment center will fit.

Every day, I notice Heidi using more words. Here are some of the newer ones that I have noticed her saying:

truck (tuk)
orange (orses)
rabbit (rabbese)
pants (pats)
jeans (deens)
clothes (cose)
dress (I think she says "dess")
bread
egg
sit
pig
cat
bee (can also make the buzzing sound)
sheep (she used to only saw "baaa" when she saw a sheep)
home (says it and does the sign)
house
ham (she's been saying this for a long time.... says haaaaam and hom)
medicine (men) (she was recently on antibiotics for 10 days)
towel
stars (can't remember how she says it)
moon
bowl (has been saying this for a long while)
strawberries (stubbies or staw-bies)
Diaper (used to say duppa)(now says dupper)
"be right back" (says "back" and does the sign)

I am sure there are some others that I just can't think of right now.

Also says some color names (like yellow "ye-yo," red "re," blue "boo," but is not correctly identifying them yet). If you ask her what color something is, she will usually say "yellow."

Also says some letter names, like: A, E, M, B. Can sometimes point to the right letter when I ask her to on the fridge (I only have these letters on the fridge) but often doesn't pick the right one. She can pretty much say most of the letters if you ask her to repeat you.

"Stubbies"

This afternoon, I had a volunteer luncheon to go to. I got another volunteer award for being involved with the Family Readiness Group (I'm the leader for Brian's company). They had free child care provided, so Heidi was able to go play with some other kids around her age while I was at the luncheon. She looked like she was having fun when I went back in to pick her up.

As soon as we got home and got out of the car, Heidi kept saying "Stubbies... Stubbies." Then as soon as I set her down, she ran over to our flower box in the front of the house where most of our strawberry plants are. She picked a few more strawberries and we went in to wash them off so she could eat them. She really enjoys her strawberries!

Oh, she is getting better at saying broccoli now... it used to sound more like "bra-bee," but now it sounds more like "brok-lee."

Tonight, when I was getting ready to put her into bed, she had a little dinosaur in her hand and she said "dinosaur" pretty clearly. It seems like just about everyday now, she says another new word.

Heidi's Strawberries

Last spring, Brian planted a bunch of strawberry plants in our front and back yard (also some raspberry and blueberry plants). Right now, these plants have some really ripe, bright red strawberries that are ready to be picked.

Today, when Heidi and I were out in the front yard, she was over by the flower box with the strawberry plants pointing down at them saying "strawberries." Then, she bent down and picked one from one of the plants. I told her that we needed to go inside and wash it off before she could eat it, so we did that... and when she put this strawberry in her mouth, her eyes and her face just lit up with the Biggest Smile! I know that she really likes strawberries, but I think she was even more excited to be eating one that SHE picked from a REAL plant! I guess this was a good science lesson for her too, so she knows that they come from plants... not just the refridgerator.

I think we need to put a fake crow out there or something to keep the birds away. I saw where a bird had eaten two of the strawberries.

As soon as she finished eating her strawberry, she rushed back outside to get another one. I found two other really ripes ones for her to eat (not all of them are ready to be picked yet). Her face lit up when she ate the second two strawberries too!

Giving Up on Weaning Again

I guess I am giving up on trying to wean Heidi again. She is 17-months-old and breastfeeds whenever she wants. She usually says "No, wa-wa (meaning water)" if I put cow's milk in her sippy cup... or gets mad and throws a fit if I try to get her to drink cow's milk instead of breastfeeding her.

She also does not drink any juices. She just makes a yucky face if I sneak some into her sippy cup for her to drink, and then won't drink anymore. Actually, she does like orange juice. I just don't usually buy it. She won't drink apple or white grape juice. She does eat fruit everyday, though, so I think she is getting plenty of vitamin C. Plus, juices do have a lot of sugar.

Brian is getting ready to come home & when he leaves again two weeks later, I am sure that all of my efforts would be wasted in trying to get her to drink cow's milk because she will probably revert back to wanting to be breastfed again when he leaves to go back.

Maybe she will eventually wean herself. I would definitely like to have her weaned before or by the time she is two. I guess I can keep feeding her until next November if she wants. Heidi is winning this battle.

I wonder if she will remember (when she is older) telling me "other side... other side" when she is ready to switch sides. My mom was telling the the other night on the phone that my Grandma Exley remembered telling her mom "other side" too, from when she was being breastfed.

Heidi has been saying "other side" for a while now. At least for the past month or two. It is not especially clear when she says it, but I know what she is saying. I guess it sounds more like "su (short u sound)-er side."

Sometimes Heidi thinks that her baby dolls need milk too, so after she drinks for about a minute or so, she sometimes wants to give whatever babydoll she has in her hands at the time a few sips too. I guess it is nice of her to share and try to feed her baby too. I wonder why she doesn't just try to feed her babies herself. I think I remember my youngest sister, Blair, trying to nurse her babies when she was little.

Today, Brian called. He got to hear Heidi say a few words while I was talking to him. I put him on speaker phone for her to hear when he called, and after he said "Hi Heidi," she either said "Hi" or "Heidi" back to him. She can say "hi" and she can say her name "Hi-ee," but it was hard to tell which she was saying back to him... maybe it was a combination of both.

Another Sunday

It is Sunday, so we went to church today. Heidi wore her pretty navy blue and white gingham dress with strawberry pockets on the front & white sandals today. We went to the nursery today and Heidi is doing pretty well in the nursery. She mostly played with a doll house and an Elmo doll that laughs when you squeeze him.

After church, we came home and after Heidi had a snack, I put her down for a nap. Then, I went online to see if Brian was online. He was, so we talked online (while I also put some cookies in to bake) for maybe a little over an hour.

Finally, at about 4:30pm, I woke Heidi up and changed her diaper/clothes and we went over to the Pritchard's to eat with them again. They have been inviting us over to eat with them on Sundays. We brought the oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies that I was baking while talking to Brian. I actually burned some because I lost track of time and didn't hear the timer going off. Brian will be coming home for R&R pretty soon. It will be nice to have him home for my birthday.

While we were at the Pritchard's tonight, Heidi played with the kids over there and really enjoyed visiting with the dogs. She calls all dogs "puppies," even if they aren't puppies anymore. She can say "dog" and "doggies," but I guess she prefers to call them "puppies." She did pretty well using their sit-n-spin too. I guess I should get her sit-n-spin out that I bought at a garage sale a while back for her to play with.

On the way home tonight, Heidi kept asking me where Paw Paw was. I am not sure if she was asking about Brian's dad (who we were visiting in San Antonio recently) or my dad (who she talked to on the phone this past week). She kept saying Paw Paw and doing the "where is it" sign. She does that saying "Daddy" sometimes too. I guess she wonders where her Paw Paws and Daddy are sometimes.

When we were in Alabama at Christmas, she really attached herself to my dad. When she woke up in the mornings, the first thing she would do is walk into the living room looking for her Paw Paw (Grandpa Big George). If he wasn't in there, she would look in the computer room and all over the house for him. Finally, she would stop looking when I told her that he went bye-bye. When he came home from work at the end of the day, she used get really excited to run up to him saying Paw Paw with her arms reaching up for him to pick her up. She wasn't so nice to my mom, though. She usually only wanted my mom to give her things, and sometimes she would go to her for things that I wouldn't give her. She knew that Maw Maw (Grandma Holly) would give her what she wanted (like a cookie).

Heidi also seemed to attach herself to her Grandpa Bob some while he was down visiting in San Antonio recently. He usually gave her bananas when she wanted them.

Tonight, she seemed to really like Brett and even went to Frank Pritchard and asked him to pick her up. I think she may prefer being around men. Maybe she thought Frank Pritchard was another Paw Paw... Maybe that's why she was asking where Paw Paw was on our way home tonight. I guess since she knows she has Paw Paw Big George & Grandpa Bob... Frank Pritchard might look like he could be another Paw Paw. Or maybe she is just wondering why these men keep coming into her life and then disappearing... like her Daddy and her Grandpas. Who knows. Hopefully she won't be too confused.