Progress Report

After listening to first-time mothers rave over how their babies (younger than my daughter by quite a bit) have "favorite animals" and how much they loved seeing them at the zoo, I felt alarmingly guilty that I didn't know her favorite animal, etc. Let me be honest: I felt guilty that I hadn't even thought of her having a favorite animal.

Last night, I had the Dude in bed, and the Rosita had just woken up from a nap, so we enjoyed some rare mommy-daughter time. I know many things about her, don't get me wrong, but I didn't realize how smart she is! =)

We played Up! Down!, an extremely complicated game which involves standing, sitting, lots of exclamation points, and giggling. I was amazed that she would purposefully sit down then look up expectantly for me to say "Down!" and then laugh her head off when I did. I had forgotten how smart babies are.

Which is really shocking, especially since she has shown herself to be a notorious penny-finder-putter-in-mouth-er and a very picky only-want-to-eat-big-people-food-er (how she tells this is beyond me).

And although I might not know which is her favorite animal, I do know she favors whichever animal her brother is playing with at the moment.

Which he does not appreciate.

I guess he hasn't heard that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" bit.

Or perhaps (perhaps!) he doesn't know what "imitation" "sincerest" and "flattery" mean.

Yet.