Say CHEESE

Don't say I didn't warn you....If you teach your toddler to say "CHEESE" for the camera all of your photos might look like this.

Seriously, I can hardly get a normal looking picture these days. The minute the camera comes out, Aubrey strikes a pose. You can tell by her hair length that she has been at it for a while. Oh well, she adorable either way!

Kind and considerate

Those are two words I never really thought of in relation to toddlers until Aubrey came along. Toddlers by nature are egocentric and typically have trouble sharing and the like, except for Aubrey. She is the exact opposite. She is an incredibly considerate person and very thoughtful. Let me give you some examples.

1) At our favorite park this weekend, some girls were building a sand castle. Aubrey stood back and watched for a minute when she must have noticed them putting a little yellow leaf on the castle for decoration. And then she was off, collecting nearby yellow leaves and offered them to the girls for their castle. She was so excited to be making their castle "better".
2) We were at a consignment sale not too long ago looking at toys when a little boy Aubrey's age started fussing for a toy on one of the tables that he obviously wanted. Since they were for sale, his mother didn't want him to play with it and gently guided him away. He was NOT happy. A minute later Aubrey broke from my hold, grabbed the toy he wanted (at 95% in height she could reach it even though he couldn't) and ran to give it to him. You could see it in her eyes that she was concerned about his distress.
3) I had a cold over the weekend and apologized to Aubrey for not being very playful. She was a bit on her own since I was feeling run down. For the next several days, every chance she could, she would wrap me up tight with a blanket saying "Mama cold". She would snuggle beside me and stroke my hair. Such a loving little girl...

I have a million more examples of this type of behavior. It pleases me so much to see this part of her personality. Just one of the many, many, MANY reasons I love my child.

Mmmmm, I like cold water.

Aubrey said her first sentence this morning. At least her first complete, proper sentence. Over the past few days we have heard sentences such as...

Look, cat in yard!
Daddy, Bree ticky (tickled) Mama hair! Ha-ha (insert Pee-Wee Herman laugh here).

It is so cool to hear her speak! She didn't exactly start out very strong on the verbal side. She never babbled as a baby and had a handful of sorta-words at a year. By 18 months I counted 70-80 words and now who knows! Her verbal skills are exploding.

Sleeping on the floor

For the last 2 nights Aubrey has gone to bed on the floor. The first night it was out of defiance. She did not want to go to bed but knew she had to so her solution...pull the blankets on the floor and sleep there! And she did for a couple of hours until I put her back in her bed. She did it last night too only now she seems to really enjoy it. She got the whole setup...pillows, blankets, lovies and cuddled up between the door and the diaper genie. Whatever. Some battles are not worth fighting.

Getting Started

OK, let's see if I will have the patience to figure this out and stick with it. This is official blog post #1! I have thought about blogging for quite a while as it it the "en vogue" thing to do but mostly to document all of my wonderful daily experiences of being a mom. It is sad to think of how many milestones and cute things I have already forgotten so the main goal of this blog will be to preserve all of those memories.