Bushels of New Tricks

Greetings from Evansville! We're at the end of our visit with Nana Cel and Papa Charley, and Gaz has been having a mostly lovely time. There have been the usual amount of tantrums, most of which have been related to tiredness or hunger. Those are the easy fixes. Her mouth has been bothering her, too, but not nearly as bad as it has in the recent past. I think we may have a molar that's finally cut (2nd year molar; all her first year teeth are already fully erupted).

Anyway, those tricks I mentioned:
- Mostly new sentences, such as "I love it!" "No like!" "See you later" and many more I don't remember at this time of night
- Asking for bed and leading me by the hand to the bedroom
- Greeting people she really likes with many kisses (it's unbelievably nice to be on the recieving end of this trick) and blowing more kisses with less prompting
- Trampoline jumping!
- Singing "Twinkle what you are!" over and over again
- Swinging on the big girl swing, followed by falling off the big girl swing, followed by getting back on the big girl swings without any tears.
- Going in and out the dog door in the back porch wall

We've had good visits with Great-Grandma Kathy and Great-Grandpa Charlie, Amber, Beth-Terry-Kate and Patty-Jaimie-Cody (thanks again for the trampolining and the big sistering and big brothering!), and of course, Uncle Sean and Aunt Hillary. Gaz loves her Uncle Sean so much she made him walk around outside with her and also attacked his beard-braid with the full power of her toddler grip. Uncle Sean's poor chin will perhaps not be so bearded when next we visit (for unrelated reasons mostly, but I'm sure the memory of Gaz hanging from his chin wiskers will ensure that he doesn't forget to shave).

We went to the zoo (where Gaz was very well behaved) and looked at the wild bald eagles (where Gaz wasn't quite so well behaved, but she didn't run out into the road so that's a definite plus). It's been a very full not-quite-a-week.

Tomorrow we drive back home with Papa Charley, and hopefully we start a new round of Wiggleworms on Thursday. I had to call and beg for Gaz to be moved into the 2-3 year-olds class because she's one month shy of the typical cut-off for moving up. It's rather a necessity, though, as she's way too rambunctious to be running around twelve-month-olds these days. I'm sure she'll love the more active stuff that they do in the 2-3 class. My only regret is that we couldn't get into the class with one of the little boys from this previous class. I'm sure she'll have a great time meeting new kids, though, and she will probably attach herself to a new someone-else's-caregiver too. Maybe not one as cool as Bella's nanny, though.