I tweeted/Facebooked this:
Watching my baby girl stumble around the yard babbling to herself and sometimes bark when she bears a dog as dusk settles in. Love it.
Milly wanted to go outside this evening. Since it was getting dark I wanted to keep her in the backyard, and after Amanda and I put pants and shoes on her Milly took my hand and lead me outside. (We’d been out a few minutes before and Amanda was chilly, so she didn’t want to bother going outside.) Milly kept hold of my hand and walked me all around the yard while holding the new Blue Beanie Baby bear in her other arm. Amanda picked it up for her today. We’re calling it Blue Bear. Amanda justified it to me by pointing out its favorable shade of blue.
We just walked around for a bit, and when she finally let me go I followed her for a while before sitting in a chair on the patio to watch her. She was being really sweet. I don’t know what the purpose was, but she made several laps around the main area of the backyard and would bark any time she heard a dog. Other than that she just kept babbling to herself.
Milly’s bark is a high pitched little woof and she puts her whole body into it when she does it. Her head and upper body does a small jolt backwards, almost like you do when you do a short, quick inhale before a sneeze.
When Milly got tired of walking around the yard in the dark she got in her little chair next to mine and just sat there. She started getting a little whiny so I took her inside. As soon as we hit the living room she said, “Bah” and then made two signs back-to-back. The latter was please, the former was bath. There was no way I could turn that down, so she excitedly climbed the stairs (with me right behind her, of course) and I put her in the tub. Amanda joined me in watching her a few minutes later.
Milly was in a really good mood tonight, and very talkative during her bath. She cried when she got out of the tub, but that’s because she thought it would be good to smack her pretty face against the tub when she threw something out of it. She was fine shortly after that though, and she read (in her own way and in her own words, of course) Goodnight, Moon to me and Amanda.
After putting Milly to bed Amanda and I watched some TV until about 9:30, when Amanda went to bed.
Other than all that, I worked and Amanda went out to look for a Halloween costume for Milly. We’ve planned to make her into a Who (as in Dr. Seuss) for a long time now, so Amanda tried to find a pink gown like the one Cindy Lou Who wore in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. She didn’t really find one just like it, so she just got a Who-looking dress along with some ribbons and some sparkling pipe cleaners for her head.
I believe all this was inspired by a green dress with dots that Milly has since outgrown. Even though Cindy Lou Who doesn’t wear anything like it in either iteration of The Grinch, everyone said she looked like a Who when wearing that with pigtails on top of her head.
So whatever. It’ll work. It’ll be cute one way or the other. The big challenge will be getting her to keep anything in her hair, as Milly has gotten to where she likes to pull out anything we put in her hair.
Zach Dotsey