The Phone Girl

Charlotte just loves to pretend she's making phone calls. She's even started using remote controls as "phones." I think she wants to get a job at Grandpa's new office! She's been practicing her dialing and she'll put the phone to her ear (backwards) and say "ooooOO!" really loudly. Here she is, using our cordless phone to try to call anyone who will pick up.

She's also been REALLY into playing peek-a-boo lately. She will look for any chance to play it. Last night when she was supposed to be going to sleep, she was about to lie down in her crib, when she turned over, looked through the bars at me and I swear she said, "BOO!" and started giggling hysterically. Sometimes it's spooky how close her babbling is to real words... she yells at the cat now, almost always a two syllable "word" that sounds almost like "kitty!" ... although it's really more like "eh-eh," we are proud parents!


She just loves to laugh and play, and it's funny to see her get so excited and start scrambling around, laughing like a little maniac.

She's been getting even better about using her signs, and it's really neat when she points things out to me. As we went into the grocery store today, she started saying, "fan." I looked, but then I told her, "I don't see any fans in here... are you talking about the lights?" (because she was looking up at the ceiling, where she usually finds fans to talk about). She immediately started using the sign for light. Then, as we were going through the parking lot to go home from the store, she started signing "bird," and I didn't even notice that there were about 20 seagulls just yards away from us. They were eating dead mayflies off the pavement (ick!), and more birds just kept arriving. We stopped, watched and talked about the birds eating for a few minutes, until there were closer to 50 or 60 birds there. It was really neat, because if she hadn't said that, I probably wouldn't even have noticed the birds at all.

It's amazing how much difference one little person can make in your life. She's in love with her baby dolls right now, which is great... she will even sometimes play with her doll in the crib for over half an hour, letting me sleep in just a little bit longer. Of course, she does expect me to kiss and coo all over her babies as much as possible... she just watches me with delight when I kiss the doll's feet or make her play pat-a-cake. As soon as Charlotte gets her baby back, she gives her big hugs and sloppy kisses... sometimes even a raspberry! What a good little mommy she is!

Use the slide show feature below to see more pictures of Charlotte on the phone and using her sign for "light." (her signs for light, milk and bye-bye are all very similar, but we're learning to differentiate the nuances and context pretty easily). When she goes to tell us she's "all done" eating, she reaches her arms up so high, I want to say, "Don't shoot!" because she looks like she's a victim of a hold-up... but she's so proud, you can't help but be pleased right along with her. I'm going to try to get more of her signs on camera soon...