conuly

1. Baby can sit up by herself. For minutes at a time. On uneven surfaces, like my stomach. (And god forbid I try to move her!)

2. She also can anticipate the fun parts of games - she starts grinning *before* they happen, if she's used to the game. So she grins *before* I lie her down after announcing "It's the baby... the baby of.... DOOOOM!" and *before* I tickle her when going "this is the way the baby goes..."

3. So, for a while, it looked like all the fun stuff was Ana coming up with new verbs and nouns and adjectives. Now that's seemingly slowed (more on this in a bit) and the *real* action is with all the "filler" words, and suchlike.

The other day, it was naptime, and Ana Did Not Want To Nap. So she tells me "I don't like that song". Okay, I switch songs. "I don't like that song either." (By which she meant she didn't want any song at all, of course :P) Either? Where did she get *that* from?

We're big on taking turns. And Ana's got the vocabulary to handle this: No, Connie, not your turn yet. It's bear's turn now. Your turn later. Where does she get these concepts from?

I tell her to do something faster: No. I eat/walk/read slowly. Not "I not eat/walk/read fast", which is what she *used* to say.

I'm walking. I talked. Verb tenses? Done.

And before I have a chance to realize that she's mastered some simple, inconsequential, barely noticeable feature of the English grammar, I realize how many things she has yet to learn. Not a day goes by without her asking me what something is, something I didn't realize she didn't know the name of because I know, of course, that it's a telephone pole, a worm, a microwave, an ice pack, a cement mixer. Or sometimes I don't realize that she doesn't know the word for the simple reason that it never occured to me to wonder what the heck that strange contraption is called.

And she makes cute little mistakes, of course. If I'm holding her, and she leans over until she feels unsafe, she doesn't say that she is falling. She says that I am falling her.

And she remembers things! Three or so weeks ago, she pointed up at an airplane vapor trail (like I was going to give her that phrase!) and called it a rainbow, a word she remembered from one or two books we've read a few times. I corrected her - no, honey, it's a cloud. And just yesterday, she points up and tells me about the clouds in the sky! The word hasn't come up in between the two events, but she remembered! So cool. (Why she can't remember the word "sea monster", though, I don't know.)

4. Minor problem: People really like Ana. No, that's not the problem. Well....

When we go out, people make an effort to tell Ana how pretty and smart and grown-up they think she is. Which is sweet, I guess, except that everyone does this. And I don't care if they do this to every child under the sun, even the ugly mean ones, I don't want her getting a swelled head. Nor do I want to call more attention to the comments than need be. And I also don't want her to be thinking she's not pretty, smart, nice, grown-up. Help?