You spin me round....

May likes to spin. It's a common activity among toddlers, but May gets into it. She also likes to step off of high things, without caring whether or not anyone is holder her. It makes life as one of her parents a very exciting thing, sometimes.

The fabulous Jen H. has recorded more vids of May, including this one of her spinning. Behold the whirling wonder that is May.



There is little other May news to tell -- she had a little cold this week but has recovered just in time for Mommy to come down sniffly. Her vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Every day she comes out with three or four words I didn't know she knew.

She also gets concepts I didn't know she knew. For instance, the other day she wanted to nurse but had a mouthful of half-chewed cashews in her mouth. I said, "You cannot nurse with a full mouth, May." So she carefully pulled her skirts back, leaned over, and opened her mouth to let the partially masticated cashews plop onto the floor.

As Nikki says, "Motherhood is gross."

This week has been all about throwing the tennis ball or the kickball or the giant excerzize ball that I'm sitting on right now to type. She laughs outrageously when it bounces and if it smacks her in the face, all the better. She and Cynthia (one of the members of our Wed. morning playgroup) were playing a variation on "catch" this week -- May would throw the ball, Cynthia would pick it up and hand it to May, and May would throw it again. Listening to the two of them laugh was causing all the adults to crack up, too.

Today we went to a fair at Tufts with Viv and Elijah and Viv's sister Alyssa. It was nice, but the highlight for May was a helium balloon. "Bah-oons fa up!" she says. (Balloons fall up!) She was also fond of the plaster statue of an elephant.

May's latest tricks

Let's see ... it's been a while since i posted anything. Since we're lacking in a camera to document it, you'll have to just rely on my poor narration of May's latest accomplishments.

She can tell you what noises made by a cow, chicken, rooster, monkey, duck, kitty, doggie, sheep, or pig. Her pig is a little impressionistic still, however. Also, trucks and construction equipment all go "vroom" and "ay panes" go "swoosh".

She can climb up the stairs and down the slide for half an hour without stop. She likes the swings (which she calls "whee!") and riding on anything that has wheels.

When reading her books, she can identify stars, moon, sun, most animals, girls, hats (she loves hats), rainbows, trains, trucks (loves trucks), flowers, shoes, shirts, cups, cars, bags, bikes (loves bikes), boys, balls, babies, buses, butterflies, bunnies, and bees. Despite the prevalence of B words in her vocabulary, she says certain things with a "G" sound instead. Gall instead of ball. Gook instead of book. But she says "bee" "bye-bye" and "boppy" just fine.

Her favorite book right now is The Big Usborne Book of Things to Spot.

This week, she's very into possessives. Everything is mommy's book, daddy's chair, and may-may's slide. And heaven forbid that the wrong person read the wrong book, sit in the wrong chair, or another kid try and get on her slide.

All hats are Red Sox hats. (Just 1.5 games up on the Yanks, with only a few more games! Go Sox!)

When passing a bald man on the bike path recently, she said "Pop pop!" (her name for Skip) and patted her head.

We regularly walk several miles a day -- I'm guessing from all the extra back-and-forthing that she does that she walks at least four and often five or six miles a day. She eats any and everything -- sweet potatoes, scrambled eggs, raw peppers, cooked onions, salsa straight from the jar, chicken satay. She prefers to feed herself. I prefer to feed her myself because I wash the floors. She drinks lots of milk, water, and cold chamomile tea at night.

Despite her best and repeated efforts, she can not yet jump. She crouches down really low, and stands up to her tip toes really fast, however. It's a matter of time, I suspect.

She's napping from noon or 12:30 to 2 or 3. She goes to bed (in theory) at 7 and wakes up when the alarm goes off at 6, though sometimes she sleeps until 7.

That's all I can think of right now.

Her shirt even says "Cutie"

So the other day, in a fit of unusual hipness, I dressed May up in a tremendously natty outfit. Black onesie (that said "Cutie" in gothic letters), black tights, a denim miniskirt, and of course the black Vans with pink and purple hearts on them. It's the last wear for the Vans -- they are really just about too small -- but they really made the outfit.

My camera is still dead, so Nikki took a photo from her camera. It's a little fish-eye-y, but you get the idea.



Other May news... she now says "Hello" and "goodbye" to every fire hydrant she sees. Her favorite phrase this week is "Go Red Sox!" Though, to be fair, with the Sox five games up on the Yankees and only 17 more games in the regular season, that's the favorite phrase of many Bostonians. If asked, she will happily tell you that her favorite player is "Big Papi!"

She likes to put Blue (or, "Boo" as she calls him) to bed. Repeatedly. All day. This involves mostly putting him down on her chair and then piling every receiving blanket, cloth diaper, burp cloth, and towel she can find ontop of him. I spend much of my day folding things. But if I hold him while I'm trying to put her to bed, she snatches him out of my arms and dashes him on the floor.

However, when Elijah (he's just 13 months old) comes to visit and naps on Viv's lap, she likes to pile more blankets on top of him, too. Poor boy is going to suffer heat stroke.

Her hair is long enough that she wears pigtails almost every day. Donna P. says I'm a good pigtailer, but May doesn't agree. She doesn't mind the left-hand pigtail but makes upset noises when I put up the right one. Not sure why.

She's hit another growth spurt and is now firmly into the 2T stuff and 90 cm from European/Hanna Andersoon places. According to the dog scale at the vet's, she's just about 27 lbs., and I'd guess about 33 inches or so.

She's very polite -- always says "ink oo" to the cars who stop for us when we cross the street and offers them a nice little wave. She's so cute when she does it that she's caused at least two people to roll down their window and lean out to wave.

Right this moment, she's demanding "ict-ures qa May-May!" She likes to look at the galleries on Kodak. Vain little monster. Anyway, I should sign off so that she can indulge. (Next thing you know, she'll be asking "Computer hanging on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" and asking me how to make poison apples.)

Nice lazy weekend

For the first time in a long time, we had a nice long lazy weekend. We went to Drumlin Farm yesterday morning and saw pigs, cows, chickens, mules, a pony, horses, and goats and sheep. May went on a hayride and got to see a real live tractor, which was her favorite thing. Though she's seen chickens plenty of times before, she seemed uncertain about them this time -- to be fair, they were very loud yesterday.

Today we didn't do much. It was cool enough in the morning to have real steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast but by the time we got back from Starbucks, it was hot! So we kicked back for a lazy afternoon -- well, as lazy as you can be while doing five loads of laundry.

David and Jen came over and Jen took the fabulous pictures you see below. You can see more here by clicking on this paragraph. As ever, you don't need to sign in, just click "View Slideshow."

Let's see -- oh yes! Other news! My friend Nikki got into Drexel and is beginning work on getting her MLS (masters of library science) in a few weeks. She's currently in London celebrating her 10th anniversary. I should have mentioned that on Thursday.

Now, without further ado, pictures:

Terrible Twos?

Hey all, this is Christopher typing one-handed as Manda tries to get May to sleep. I apologize in advance for typos.

This week's milestones for May are brought to you by the number two. As in terrible twos, home of the full-body temper-tantrum. We got the first of ours yesterday after the stick May was playing with was appropriated by a dog on the Bike Path. It took until we got home and an unwanted diaper change to reach full melt-down, but there it was.

The other two is counting. As in "Doggy! Two Doggies!" It may be that she is using two as a word for plural in general (two was applied to a group of four on Friday), but it still makes her as smart as the rabbits from Watership Down (whose counting system went "one, two, many").

More pictures please!