16 Months and a Barrel of Laughs

Five anecdotes of the weekend with the toddler:

1. She ended her long Sunday with a trip to the grocery store, where she greeted literally everyone we passed or who passed us by with the shrieked, shouted, whispered, announced word "Hi." A good number of our fellow shoppers returned the favor, and I hope she brightened their evenings.

2. Her love of magazine covers reached a new peak on Saturday morning when she walked up to the current Atlantic Monthly, put her index finger on the picture of A.Q. Khan (the mastermind of Pakistan's nuclear bombs and a baaad man), and then leaned it to give him a big kiss. This may shed some light on her continuing use of the word/sound "Oppy."

3. She suddenly and mystifyingly started touching a drawing of a big bat and a little bat (the nocturnal, flying kind) in one of her books and then saying confidently, "Mama." We had no idea why she was doing this until we found, in another book, a picture of a a mama bat and a baby bat, hanging upside down and smiling.

4. A few times each day, she would jump up, say, "Niiii!" and then rush to her room, where she'd demand either her favorite bear - Pinky Bear - or her blanket. On receiving the right item into her arms, she'd sigh again, "Niiiii" - "Nice."

5. Friday, she marched into the guest room, reached up to touch our boombox stereo (recently exiled from a prominent spot in the living room to an unobtrusive shelf in the guest room), and went, "Ya ya ya ya," her word for singing. This meant, as any toddler's mother should know, that she wanted to hear some music and dance. After Shannon complied on Friday, Julia asked again on Sunday. We put the boombox on a chair in the living room, plugged it in, and cued up some Laurie Berkner. Julia then spent nearly half an hour standing there, pressing different buttons, and joggling her legs in a toddler dance of joy.