Genevieve is 18 Months Old Today!

Genevieve is 18 months old today. I can't believe it! So just to commemorate the occasion, here's some Genny stats.

We started a list of her words, and have added to it as she learned new ones! Right now, the count is at 67. Her favorite words (besides Mama and Dada) are: baby, dog, cookie, jacket (means she wants to go outside), go, juice, and Daisy. My personal favorite is when she calls herelf by name, "Nenny."

After threatening to never walk, she took to the feet at 15 months. She loves to jump and is starting to learn to run. Right now we are at the "fast, sort of fluid walk" stage.

Genevieve's favorite things to do:

• Play with her BABY! Gen is a baby-fiend! I hear the word "baby" a thousand times per day.
• Read books. Right now, she has figured out which books have the most pictures of babies and dogs, and those are her favorites. There is one called "Baby Dear" about a little girl and her baby doll and all the things they do, and it is always a hit.
• Genny really loves her friends, and she is always thrilled to see her playmates. She likes to tickle them (sometimes rather violently) and to be a big girl with the other big girls.
• Gen loves to dance. She can do Itsy Bitsy Spider and will briefly do the Chicken Dance before losing interest. She likes "If you're happy and you know it" a lot.
• Gen loves her doggie. She and Daisy have this funny game I call Daisy-tag, where Gen stands in the middle of the living room and laughs as Daisy runs laps around her and nose-tags Gen as she goes by. It's hilarious.
• Gen loves the outside and revels in her newfound freedom of opening doors. She can now take herself into the backyard (yikes!).

Genevieve's least favorite things to do:

• Get her diaper changed.
• Eat meat.
• Go to bed.
• Get dressed.

My table dancer

Tonight we celebrated Robert's Grandmother's 85th birthday. We brought the entertainment -- a table dancer. Robert used ringtones on his cell phone so she would have music to dance to. You can see her go back to him to tell him to start another one!

Unfortunately, we'll never be able to get her to sit at a table ever again....

But most importantly, Happy Birthday Grandma!

So this second video was added later. Ever since "Dancing with the Stars" has been on, Gen has started dancing with a partner (usually Baby). So here's a quick clip of her adding a partner to her table dancing....

Nose Patrol

Can you tell it's allergy season around here? Blowing noses has become entertainment..... she tried to blow the dog's nose as well, but that didn't go over very well....

Miss Ratchet

Tonight Robert was putting up a gazebo on the porch, and he had a lot of help. Gen wanted to play with the tools as well, and the only non-pointy one was Robert's ratchet. She figured out basically what to do, and wanted to help.

20 minutes later, she is still playing with the ratchet. She has ratcheted everything in the yard, and still going. Although now it's time to clean up, and she is unwilling to give up the ratchet.

My friend Ben!

Here's Gen and her friend Ben this week. They are so big! Here they are, a little more than a year ago (December 2006). Gen can barely wake up enough to tell him to go away! They are sure getting big fast!

Dancing With the Genny

Wendy's a big fan of Dancing With the Stars, and Robert tolerates it. It turns out that Gen is a BIG fan! This is her dancing as the professionals did their opening number. She's checking out their moves to add to her repertoire....

Daddy's helper

Robert's been able to work on the Cobra some lately since the weather has been so nice. Genevieve really likes to help. Yesterday she found a tool and went to town.

Gen is also a willing helper with the yardwork.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can....

Gen learned a new word today--snow. It snowed here overnight, and so we are staying in this morning. So we did something new--we made cookies together. Seemed like a good idea since "cookie" is Genny's second favorite word, right behind "baby."

Gen's stirring her "dough," just like Mommy.

Here she is adding the sprinkles to the cookies. She is a very insistent and thorough sprinkle-applier.
Waiting for cookies is so tough!

Ah, sweet cookie!

Through this experience, I have learned a few things:


1. Although toddlers do not understand that there is a difference between cookie dough and an actual cookie, they are acutely aware of whether or not the lid is on the sprinkles. So there was no pretending to put sprinkles on the cookies, she had to have the real deal. Thus, there are sprinkles all over the kitchen. It's festive.


2. My dog, the canine vacuum, does not eat sprinkles.


3. Waiting 8 minutes for the cookies to cook is an eternity for a toddler.

4. You can never have too many sprinkles on a cookie!