Ana spent the day with some ripped-up paper.

She declared it her hammer, and "fixed" the ceiling in her room several times.

Evangeline spent the day smiling at me and trying to get me to sing various fingerplays with her. Oh, and saying "ba" a lot. Ba for book, ba for ball, ba for "a bird outside the window!", ba for bowl/plate/fork. She hasn't said ba for butt yet, but I'm sure Ana will think it is hilarious when she finally does.

What's funny is she *will* sign all those "ba" words if I ask her to... but she's never spontaneously signed them, and won't even if I honestly have no idea what she's saying and make this clear by going whatwhatwhat a lot. She'll sign other words, but not ba words.

The baby points at things, you know.

Points at them, and chatters about them, and goes around bringing them to the people she thinks belong with them. So if she sees my shoes, she brings them to me, and Ana always has her toys brought over, that sort of thing.

It's a repeat of when Ana was this age. I am stunned that babies point at things this early, and identify them, and chatter. Of course, I didn't point at things. Like, ever. No, not "like, ever", but actually "never". And I'm pretty sure I was a bit of a late talker - as my mom says, stuck to one, maybe two-words at a time for ages, then one day woke up speaking full, grammatical sentences. (Not very clear sentences, I imagine, but one can't have everything.)

I love them both dearly, I really do (Ana carefully told her mom and Elise today that "Even when Connie's still mad at me, she still loves me", and it's true) - but sometimes, they seem so strange to me at these young ages.(Ana's love of picking up rocks and keeping them notwithstanding.)

But I don't really remember me at that age. I remember not pointing - that lasted - but the rest, I'm just speculating on. So maybe I was exactly like this except for the pointing, but nobody's ever told me.

Today is the day before the Ides, and this is what I'm thinking about.