Anya has learned to blow kisses. She sticks her hand over her mouth and slobbers on it before extending it to you. She must not believe that kisses can be blown, because she insists on touching her kissed upon hand to yours much like a high-five.

Ally has learned her birthday. She's kinda obsessed with ages right now. She's been talking about what will happen when she's 4 and not 3 anymore and how she'll go to preschool when she's 5 (uh, I don't know about that one) and how Anya's zero but she'll be one soon (next week!). She's also learning about the days of the week. Every morning we have to talk about what day it is and what day it was yesterday. And the plans for the upcoming days. The day care taught her the days of the week using a song, so everytime you ask her what day comes next, she has to sing the song to run through them all. It's to the tune of "Oh my Darling, Clementine" it gets stck in your head all day if you hear it early in the morning.

"There are seven days
There are seven days
There are sev
ven days in the week.
There are seven days
There are seven days
There are seven days in the week.

Sunday Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday, Fri
day, Saturday
There are seven days
There are seven days
There are seven days in the week."

This morning I found 2 little toy stuffed chicks that Ally had been playing with carefully arranged on the floor. on plates. hmmm... very odd. I don't know what that was about. It's especially interesting to note that there was only 1 plates upstairs at last count. She had to make a special trip down to her room to get the second one.

Anya fell on the patio last night and scarped her head. She got bruises on her shins. She had a big scratch on her cheek that is just starting to fade. people are going to think we actually beat her (instead of just thinking about it), but  I swear, she's just very active and clumsy still. She's walking better in shoes though. Almost got it mastered. We only put them on her outside still though until she gets really good at walking.

Ally uses the term "yesteryear" to refer to almost anything in the past. I try not to laugh, but I love it when they interpret language and make up things like that. It's always a little sad when they figure out the right way to say stuff like that.

I started letting Anya cry again last night. I'm going to keep better records of our progress this time, so that I can prove to Rob that things are getting better. Last night we spent a total of 1 hour comforting/nursing (in small increments) 2 and a half hours screaming and 6 and a half hours sleepiing. She was tired this morning when I had to wake her for day care. Keep you fingers crossed that things improve.

Ally is getting really good at reading certain words. When we read stories, we usually pick a little word and ask her to find it on all the pages. you know, something like "in" or "is" or "the". she knows mom and dad and drip and worm and zoo. She can even read very simple sentances if I spell them out with her magnetic letters. I put "The dog is big" up there the other day. Unfortunately, Anya is bound and determined to remove any magnets within reach, so Ally didn't get to see it there very long. But, it really makes her smile to be able to read a whole sentance like that.

Anya has started picking up stuffed animals and grunting. it's like she's trying to woof or quack, etc. it all sounds the same though. She hasn't developed any attachments to animals like Ally did at this age. Yet. But she loves her blankets. This kid IS Linus. She sucks her thumb with the ltitle corner of the blanket in her hand and half in her mouth. the corners to her blankets get nasty and crusty really quick too since she's had a runny nose a lot lately. yuck. So anyway, I had grandma sew the edges of a little 15 in. by 12 in. fabric blanket that she can carry around if needed and not have to trip over her big one. We only get it out for her when she's really cranky, but it's not bedtime yet. I'm proud to say she actually likes it. usually ideas like that i like they should work, but fail miserably when I try them out.