Zoe has always liked her “horsie” (a gift from Great Aunt Yola and Great Uncle Jake), but she’s shown an especially big interest in it in the past few weeks. Almost every day these days, she hops on the saddle and starts rocking back and forth – usually while laughing and humming (along with me) the theme song to Lone Ranger. We’ve shown pictures of her riding before, but I thought this was an appropriate time to post another!

-M

I recently read an article on toddlers’ verbal skills, and it included a poll on how many words readers’ children are able to say. According to the (admittedly unscientific) poll, 53% of 16-month-old girls can clearly say 1-10 words, 20% can say 11-20 words and 27% can say more than 20. One mom in the article said she sat down one day and wrote up a list of her daughters’ words – and was amazed at the results. This sounded like a good idea, so I did just that tonight – and I’ve pasted it below, for your reading pleasure.

It’s a good list, I think – though I wish I could somehow rid it of “mine!”

baby
ball
bath
beep beep
book
bye
cheese
daddy
dog
ee-i-ee-i-o (more a phrase than a word, but…)
good
hello
hi
mine
mommy (and mama)
night night
no
nose
peek-a-boo
phone
please
Pop Pop
thank you
uh-oh
yum

-M

Zoe turned 500 days old today. It’s a pretty cool milestone, and we thought we’d enlist the help of Lou Seal to mark the occasion and show how much she’s grown. Below is a picture from this afternoon, followed by another from March 7, 2007 – when she was about 100 days old. (Is it just me, or is Lou shrinking?)

-M

I recently came across results of a study showing that moms argue with their toddlers about 20 times a day. Though the toddlers in the study were older than Zoe (30 months), I could certainly relate to the findings. Zoe recently (and unfortunately) learned the word “mine,” and we spend a lot of time, er, discussing what’s really hers – and what’s okay for her to play with. (Sadly, the majority of the items she shouts “mine” about are not hers – and are not things she should have in the first place. She’s not a happy camper when I take said objects away from her.) She also recently started to rebel against diaper changes, and she sometimes hears stern words from me as I try to negotiate the squirming legs and arms. (And don’t even get me started on our conversations when she spits out her food at dinner.)

There are some great things about this age for sure, but having to occasionally fight with your child isn’t one of them!

-M

Zoe is a big shoe fan, and yesterday morning she stole one of her dad’s and plunked her little foot inside. She was having so much fun in there that we just had to take a video…

-M

Per our Friday tradition, Zoe and I met up with Polly and Miles at the playground today. (Zander was sick and couldn’t join us.) Polly and I sipped our coffees and chatted while the kids ran around, played in the sand, went down the slide, etc. for most of the morning. (They even held hands when they thought we weren’t looking; unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera out.) We knew Zoe and Miles were having fun – we just didn’t realize how *exhausted* they were getting! The photo below was taken about five minutes after we left the park…

-M

My mom likes to call pigtails “piggies,” and she’s always saying how much she liked putting them in my hair and my sister’s hair when we were little. I still have trouble getting Zoe’s hair in pigtails (she’s too quick for me), but Elena seems to have no problem. Here’s how Zoe looked frolicking around in her piggies after daycare yesterday.

-M

Zoe’s friend Nicolas (son of Q’s boss and my friend Chanda) turned one last week, and the three of us went to his birthday party on Sat. (There was a red-wagon theme to the party, and Zoe enjoyed taking Nicolas’ wagon for a little spin.) While there, I struck up a conversation with some of the other moms, whose babies were right around Nicolas’ age. All the babies were “cruising” and a few were walking, but none were as active (or, obviously, as big) as Zoe, and one of the moms, after meeting Zoe and learning her age, said, “It’s so fun to see what we have to look forward to!” I was completely jolted by her comment, and I couldn’t help but internally rewind to past events in which *I* was the one to make that comment to other moms. For so many months, Zoe was the little baby – the one who wasn’t crawling, walking, running, etc. – and I would look to other babies/tots (just a few months older than her) with a sense of anticipation and awe. Suddenly Zoe is the “big kid” who other moms look to for a taste of what their future holds – and I’m still amazed that this is the case.

Time really flies.

-M

Every night before Zoe goes to bed, we say good-night (via a little song I made up) to her close relatives: grandparents, aunt and uncles, etc. I like to think that our song, combined with seeing people on the webcam and hearing little stories from us, is helping Zoe get to know her loved ones – most of whom live far away. But nothing, of course, is as good for her as actual time with relatives – which is why family visits are so important.

My parents’ visit came to an end this morning, but Zoe was lucky to have had tons of time with them over the past few days. She totally ate up the attention, and she also did more posing than ever before! Below are a few more of my favorite pics from G&G’s visit. (Thanks for coming, guys.)

-M