Big Personality

Riis is cracking us up these days. She has a really fun sense of humor, and an expression for every situation. She widens her eyes in faux surprise when she chucks her cup off of the high chair ("Uh, oh!") and scrunches up her little mouth and nose when she's pretending to be mad. (Usually when told not to hit, which she still does. A lot.)

The words are also coming fast and furious: She picked up a Kix cereal piece yesterday and announced, "ball." She also knows "bye," "go," "shoes," "eyes," "Cole," "dada," and "mama," although she insists on calling me "dada" just to spite me.

But she understands a ton, and will follow complex sets of commands, like, "come here so we can put on shoes." She runs over and kicks up her tiny feet, chattering, "go, go" because she knows it means we're leaving.

Every time I change her diaper or throw something in the garbage, I say, "ewww!" and now she's picked it up. Nothing cuter than a small toddler wrinkling up her noise and saying "eeewww!" about her own dirty diaper. Her voice is so high-pitched that it's even funnier. Little did I know that I'd have my own little Summer from the O.C.

She's got such a big personality that sometimes I forget she's still so little. I got her ready for her bath yesterday, and was sort of stunned at how physically small she is, just a tiny sprite with a shock of unruly blond hair.

That hair was quite a sight last night after I took out the four (!!) ponytails they put in at daycare.


I repeat: The ponytail holders are OUT when I took these, even the top whale spout.