Today in the car, on the way to our friend Julia’s first birthday party, Claire Helen saw a bicycle, and said “bicycle!” clear as day.

This is so sad. Until today, the same sight would have elicited a gleeful “Bo-peh-doh!” the same as the question, “What does mommy ride?” had the answer “Bo-peh-doh!” She has started using grammar words (a, an, the, is, was, possessive pronouns of all stripes- correctly, even. Ex. "Mommy, get my diaper" instead of "Di-puh?"), and generally becoming a socialized little creature. So for posterity’s sake, a Claire Helen to English dictionary of our favorite mispronunciations. There is an assumed exclamation point, because she is a toddler, and everything in a toddler's world is So! Urgent! And! Important!

Bo'-peh-doh- bicycle
Wim' -mee- swimsuit, swimming, (can we go) swimming?
Si-Si- Simon
Geef- giraffe
Doh'-de-poh- octopus
Fop- flop (on the bed), any number of long eared favorite stuffed animals
Mise- mine, my, "Betty is doing something she shouldn't be doing!"
Boo-ey- Veggie Booty (kale and rice puffs);Anything salty and crunchy
Up'-Pee-Doh- Up we go
Boff (in your best Super Nanny impression)- bath
Ap'-poo- apple, "Sing any song from preschool"
Bo-Be- Doh'- Peek-a-boo
Tee-tee- tickle
Mom-my- Mommy, come here, "Something is not right with the world!"
Tau-pau- Paw paw, Grandpa (as in, "I love grandpa," her first spontaneous "I love" anybody.)
Tom-pau- Grandma, Nanna
Muk-muk- "Get me milk." (note the conspicuous lack of "please.")
Ah-fah-vah- I love you
Tay- Claire
Neet- Nate
Doo-tee- Cookie (which, luckily for us, can also mean "wheat thin.")
Eets- Ants (obsession du jour, in conjunction with "worms," which she can pronounce correctly)

My parents came this week, in a cataclysmic collision with the week our camera battery died, so it was a woefully underdocumented trip. Everyone had a lovely time, and Simon charmed the pants off my mom, I think. The pictures we take of him are so out of character, because like most babies, when he sees the camera, he stares at it earnestly instead of smiling. Which was fine for Claire Helen, because that's what she was going to do anyway. What's out of character for Simon is that's the only time he stops smiling with people around.

If you so much as glance in his direction, he'll start giggling loudly and lunging for you, both arms straight out, to hold him so he can smile at you closer up and maybe sort of faux hug you. Whoever you are, he finds you to be the most scintillating and wonderful person to have ever walked the earth. You can imagine the size of my head after living with this for so long. If he suspects a room is not paying close enough attention to him, he'll shriek two times and look around, and if that doesn't work, he shrieks four times before looking around, grinning. That has yet to fail to work, even during my very serious and important pre-school board meeting last week. Claire Helen has started to notice in public that he is the reason people keep coming up to her and even occasionally speaking to her, so she'll give him a withering stare from her seat in the stroller if he starts his come hither shrieks, but he does not care at all. He's far too busy with the cute. Right now he also appears to be attracted to anything pink, as well as cats of all sizes. I have been on the lookout for a stuffed pink cat just to blow his mind, but have so far come up short.

Simon with his two favorite toys- Blue Monkey and Weird Octopus. I tried to get a picture of Simon alone with his toys, but that went over exactly as well as you imagine. 

 

Claire Helen after a successful potty adventure. I have been telling people we are "sort of potty training," but since getting a number of horrified gasps and "She's so young!" 's, I am going to amend that to "we are trying to figure out what to do with the pee that comes out of her when she takes off her diaper, since she takes off her diaper 5-8 times day." It's not really potty training in the sense that we think we will be done with diapers in the next 9 months, just in the sense that diapers have become...less reliable for us. 

Wanted to keep celebrating after I showed her how. 

 

Saturday morning we dyed Easter Eggs 

Simon helped 

 

Not all of them survived. 

 

Easter! 

 

Simon modelling his Easter get up 

Pretty good bed head. 

We went to Mat's cousin's house for Easter, and they had an Easter Egg Hunt for all the litle kids (there were a ton.). Here is Claire Helen, mostly excited to do whatever it is that her cousin Greta is about to do. 

Claire Helen hands an egg to Daddy the easter basket 

 

We have moved Claire Helen from a high chair to little kid table, and let her use regular cups instead of sippies now, so there is a lot more food spillage in our lives. She gets extremely angry when Betty comes sniffing around her table, screaming "No! No! Mise! MIIIIIIIIISE!" as Betty licks up the spilled milk or discarded raisins that take up the two foot radius around Claire Helen's chair.

Just now, Simon and Claire Helen were playing on the rug with his octopus, and Betty came sniffing around, checking out Simon's head (it is pretty cute), which apparently triggered the toddler possession alarm. "No! No! Mise! Mise Si Si! Mise Si Si!"

Just so we're clear, Simon = Claire Helen's discarded dinner. Awww.

Pictures soon.

Dinner time father and son band. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has obviously been some error. As far as I can tell, the world is not currently spinning around me. Correct this, please. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today we had some people over for a little baby party

The Claires were concerned.

We must watch out for the cookies!

What if they steal a cookie?

But they seemed pretty nice.

 

And if they do I can just rescue the cookie with my ambulance.