My little model?

Goodness, what is this girl going to be? Just when I'm convinced that she's all tomboy, she reveals a girly side and insists on being dressed in dresses and hats. Today was the first day in a week that she's worn jeans, and that only happened because she was distracted from her clothes by I forget what. She's always loved posing for the camera (except for the first 6 months of her life when it scared her half to pieces), but these days, sometimes it seems like she's just showing off how cute she is.

I find her in the strangest places. This book nook is on the far side of my (and Seth's) bed. She seems to have discovered our comic book collection. Heavens, but she is her father's child.

And she's beginning to do all sorts of new things. In the last three days, I think she's added three new words and four new animal sounds: spoon, Max, and yeah; coo, bah, moo, and cac (quack). She's learned to nod and shake her head to communicate. She tells me when her diaper is wet. She begs for her Halloween candy by signing "more." She gets her own cup out of the fridge. I'm flabergasted.

She startled me last Sunday by sitting down and building a block tower. It's been at least a month since she showed interest in her blocks, but she just dumped out the blocks, sat down, and built a seven block tower. Check out this montage. One block on top of the other. That's the first time she's done that. I was worried because block building is on the 18 month checklist, but now I can see that she's not going to have any trouble with it.

Seth laments that Boo Boo always does the most growing when he's gone, and as much as I'd like to call that crazy, I really think it's true. Maybe the shift is personal attention does it. Or maybe there's just more space. Or maybe she has less distraction because Daddy isn't here to snuggle with. Whatever the reason, she seems to grow by leaps and bounds when he isn't around to see it. It's not fair, really. Here's hoping he'll be around to watch the next one grow.