Maze, Uh Oh, and Outside: The Growing but Sometimes Limited Vocabulary of a Toddler

Maze
While eating Anna started pointing and yelling, “maze, maze.” I thought, what in the world does Anna want. Half the time I cannot understand what she is trying to say. She kept pointing and yelling, “maze!” louder and louder. “What is a maze?” I looked around for what she was so emphatically wanting. Then I saw Elise, who had rubbed spaghetti all over her hair and face and was covered in red sauce, noodles, and meat. I hollered, “Oh no Elise, what a mess!” Then Anna sat back, smiled at me said, “A maze.”

Uh Oh!

If anything isn’t quite right, or if Anna spilled something on the floor, etc. Anna always says, “Uh Oh” to get our attention, and let us know something is wrong. It is funny because if we don’t pay attention her, she will keep yelling it louder and louder in a sterner voice until we pay attention. Sometimes it goes like this, “uhhh, ohhhh,” “ Uhhh, Ohhh,” “Uhh, Ohh,” “Uh!!, Oh!!” I guess those are the only words she really knows to tell us there is something wrong.

Outside

Yesterday evening Kent called to let me know he was on his way home from school.  I thought, I wonder where Anna thinks her dad is all day. So I asked, “Anna, where is dad?” She looked at me and thought for a moment, then motioned in the direction of the door and said in a nonchalantly, “Outside.”

Elise Walking

During the last couple weeks, Elise has reached a new milestone. She is now walking, it is fun and crazy! She is pretty stable so Dayna and I no longer have to be super worried when we see her set off on her own.

An Update on Anna

Anna, our 22 month old is growing up, learning and changing before our eyes.

Anna loves to draw and color, you give her anything that writes and she will sit down and color away. We have learned our lesson after trying in vain to scrub out pen marks on little shirts and have stopped leaving pens out. Washable markers are her favorite and my favorite too since they wash off so easily. We have to watch her though, because she can get a little carried away and bank statements, letters, bills, magazines, and even Elise’s face have become a wonderful coloring canvas.

When Kent comes out in the mornings with his bear slippers on, pretending he is a bear, Anna laughs and thinks it is so fun. She likes putting on his slippers too and being a bear. And talking about bears, Anna has had this fascination over wolves for a few weeks ever since she found my grandmothers “big bad wolf” in her closet. She keeps saying, “GG’s wolf, woooo!”

Since Anna wakes up every morning at 6:00am Kent gets up with her and reads her the scripture stories from the scripture books my parents gave to us. One morning I was watching her flip back and forth through the scripture book after Kent had left, then she stopped on this page, opened it nicely as if she had finally found what she was looking for, pointed, and said, “Jesus”.

Anna is also becoming a little mother (to her dolls that is). She likes to feed her dolls, take them on walks, teach them to dance, and put them down for a nap. It is fun watching her. Sometimes she gets all her dolls together and feeds them lunch.  

She even sits next to her mama and nurses her baby too.

Even though Anna might be a mama’s girl she is actually “daddy’s girl!” :) You see, Kent and I have worked it out so that he is in charge of Anna at night and I work with Elise. So Kent puts Anna to bed, wakes up to sooth her when she wakes during the night, and gets up with her in the morning; I do the same for Elise. It works out well so that we can both get more sleep and we usually only tune in to “our” child’s cry. Yep, Anna is daddy’s girl.

Anna has a best friend; Elise. We love to see them play together. Lately they have been making each other laugh and it is so funny to watch them laugh back and forth. She gets excited when Elise wakes up from her nap and wants Elise to do things with her.

Anna is also somebodies worst enemy and I bet you could never guess who’s. She is sometimes just a little too rough with Elise and has had to go to her room for time-outs several; OK, maybe more then several, times a day. The other day we were all holding out our arms for Elise to walk to us and Elise was walking back and forth. Then Anna came to join in on the fun and held out her arms for Elise to walk to her. Elise started walking and then when she realized who she was walking to she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and headed the opposite direction. Not on her life would she dare walk into Anna’s arms, who knows what would happen then. (At least we can say Elise has good self preserving abilities.)

All in all, we love our sweet Anna and the joy she brings into our home.

A Rescue from the Firemen

Ya, smart! Don’t ask me how it happened ‘cause I don’t know, but I managed to lock Anna in the car, with my keys, and phone. After borrowing a phone and trying to get ahold of Kent, and no he did not answer, I had to call the police who dispatched the firemen to come rescue Anna. Poor little thing kept looking a me through the window wondering why I was not getting her out. I kept smiling and waving at her so she did not cry.

The police, on the phone asked me like three times if the air conditioning was still on in the vehicle, and I told her, “No, and not to worry it was not even hot outside.” I couldn’t figure out at first why she kept asking me that, but then I realized she probably gets these calls in the hot Arizona summer and it is an emergency to get the kid out of the car fast before they roast, so she is probably just used to asking about the AC.

The firemen pulled up and opened the lock. I guess it takes five firemen to open a car, but they were sure nice and when I pulled Anna out she gave them a sweet thank you wave. All the kids at playgroup ran out to see the fire truck and one of them asked me why I locked my daughter in the car. Oh, the adventures we have.