Twinkle Star

Oh, Aubrey. She just gets better and better every day. My list of cute things she does is starting to be ridiculous. And because I've been so lazy and haven't written in awhile, some of the things I've written down are already outdated. But I'll include them here anyway, because they must be remembered.

• Common words and phrases:
• "Dare diz" for "there it is" (though she actually does say "there is" now)
• "Dare goes" for "there it goes"
• "Here come" for "here it comes"
• "Hold it"
• "Do it"
• "Go get it" (sometimes she'll say this about things we can't get, like a dog she hears barking in the distance)
• "Stay"
• "Faffle" for "waffle"
• "SPA-kiki" for "sparkly"
• "Ohh yeah!" (with great enthusiasm)
• "Hurt"
• "Kiss" when she wants me to kiss an ouchy
• "Better" after I've kissed said ouchy
• "Kids" when we get to the park and she wants to play with other kids
• "Oh course" for "of course"
• "Oh dear"
• "Lookit!"
• "Hold you" when she wants to be held
• "Biiiiig"
• "Poopagots" for "polka dots"
• "Lap"
• "Siwwy" for "silly"
• "Scooch" when she climbs on a kitchen chair and wants to be pushed closer to the table
• "Mogurt" for "Yogurt"
• "Cay we woo" for "carry you" (basically when she wants to be picked up)
• "Way" when putting something away or throwing it away
• "Knock!" (always accompanied by knocking on something)
• "Need that!" when talking about her pacifier (because I always say, "You don't need that.")
• "New one" when she wants to hear a different song or read a different book
• "Push! Push!" when she has to push something to make it work
• "Come on!" (repeated whenever Daniel or I say it)
• "Geez!" (repeated when Daniel says it to mock something I've done)
• "Don't choke!" (spoken while she's eating)
• "Beep-a-goo" for "Peek-a-boo"

• She often refers to clothes as "cute." I wonder where she got that from, haha.
• When she hands something to you, she'll say, "Thank you!" She also says it when we do things for her, which is nice.
• When she asks for something, I always repeat it to clarify. She then always responds with "OK," as if I've convinced her. (Example: "Crackers?"  "You want crackers?"  "Okay.")
• She has recently become very into nursery rhymes and action songs, so she's always asking me to do them. Favorites include "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Clap Your Hands," etc.
• She likes to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" herself. It's soooo cute. She only says, "Twinkle, twinkle star" and "Up ub ub pie" (for "up above the world so high"), but it kills me.

• Speaking of stars, we put some glowing stars on the ceiling above her crib, and when we turn off the lights at bedtime, she always goes "ooh" or laughs to show her satisfaction. And she'll say, "Stars! Ceiling!"
• When she finds trash, she's very insistent on throwing it away. We have the kind of trash can you have to step on to open, which she can't do, so she always knocks on the can and asks us to help. Then she says, "Thank you" as she throws whatever it is away. 
• She likes to play a game in which she runs to the corner of the room, looks at me with a mischievous smile and starts wiggling her fingers at me. When I wiggle mine back at her, she laughs and runs at me (sometimes with her eyes closed, for some reason) until I grab her and pick her up.
• For a while there, she'd randomly growl and then say, "Tiger!"
• When I'm lazy and lie on the couch as she plays, she'll often say, "Sleeping!" which means I'm supposed to pretend to be asleep. Then she waits a bit and shouts, "Awake!" to wake me up. When I jump awake, she laughs.
• She has a number of her books "memorized." She'll flip through and "read" them to herself out loud. She knows what's written on a lot of the pages, and she'll say what she can. There's one book, a re-imagined version of The Three Little Pigs, which has a particular sequence that is a combination of actual text and the sound effects I make when I read it to her. She'll often just randomly recite it out of the blue: "Weeee! Uh-oh! Crash! Oof!" I have a lot of these videos, so that may become a separate blog post... 
• In the meantime, here she is saying "You came back!" while "reading" Llama Llama Misses Mama, in which Llama gets upset when his mom leaves him at school. Aubrey had a hard time with nursery, so we used this book (from the library) to teach her that we'd always come back, just like Mama Llama. So she always read this particular page with great enthusiasm. SO cute. (The video is super short because I'm a turd and spent the whole time trying to get her to say something else instead of enjoying what she was already doing. So I cropped it.)

• When we go up the stairs for nap time or bedtime, she insists that Mr. T. "fly" up the stairs (which really means I just throw him). Then she scrambles up to get him.
• She randomly will say, "Ashes, ashes... ah down!" as if she's doing "Ring Around the Rosy."
• We made a photo book with all of our family members in it, and she's really good about recognizing people. Sometimes she'll ask to see a specific person. She says all of the names so cute, but my favorites so far have been "Stock" for "Scott" and "Uncolt" for "Uncle Colt." Oh, and whenever she sees the picture of Nana, she also says, "Necklace!"
• She actually really likes to pray. She'll randomly ask us to pray or sometimes ask to pray again after we've already prayed. She's pretty good about folding her arms, too. Just today she randomly said, "Prayer!" and said her first prayer. It was just "Heavenly Father, [babbling], Jesus Christ, Amen!" I almost died of sweetness.
• Also church-related, she recognizes pictures of Jesus and the temple and is very excited by them. She often says, "Father!" which means she either wants to pray or wants us to sing A Child's Prayer. Her most-requested song is I Am a Child of God, which she just calls "God."
• At night, during our bedtime singing, she'll turn around, whine, and point at my mouth if I stop singing. When I say, "You want me to keep singing," she says, "Yeah," And I melt.
• She sometimes points at the ultrasound image on our fridge and says, "Baby!" Other times she says, "Baby sleeping!" At my OB appointments, she gets very upset when anyone touches me. My cute protector!
• She likes to lift her toys up and down while saying, "Up, down, up, down..."
• She has started treating her stuffed animals (particularly Bound Hound and Mr. T.) the way we treat her. She pretends to feed them snacks, wipes their noses with Kleenexes, tells them to "lean back" and then lays them down, covers them with a blanket and says "sleeping" or "nap," etc. She also says, "Hi you!" to them, which is what I say to her.
• She has started putting small toys into bowls or other containers, bringing them to us, and saying, "Food!" We pretend to eat whatever it is (often it's Little People Disney princesses... I realize that's weird), and she is satisfied. Sometimes she also says, "Oven!" when she brings the "food."
• She likes to put on our shoes and then say she's ready to go.

• When we play upstairs, she likes to stand on our bed, count (sometimes with "4,5,6") or say "Set, go!" and then fall face first into the covers. And actually, whenever we say, "Ready?" she responds with, "Set, go!"
• She has started to get sad when we leave after putting her to bed. She'll ask whoever is doing it to stay. It breaks my heart every time. The worst was when she said, "Mommy gone" after I left one time!
• She's particularly interested in letters and pretty much knows all of them (including a word or two that starts with the letter). She also likes to count (unless you ask her to, and then she gets flustered and says, "All done!") and is learning her shapes. Colors are interesting for her... pretty much everything is green. Favorite color, perhaps?
• When I get frustrated by something (uncooperative bread dough, annoying drivers, my own clumsiness, etc.) and sigh, she'll say, "Hi! Hi!" until I say it back with a proper amount of enthusiasm. It's like she's trying to make me feel better, which is just too cute.
• Half of the animals quack when you ask her what they say. I guess she really likes ducks!
• Sometimes, when she's done something she knows she's not supposed to, she says, "Hey!" or "Oh, no!" before I get a chance to. Then she smiles mischievously and runs away. Punk.
• When she's having a hard time doing something but then does it without help (like stabbing food with her fork),  she says with great pride, "I did it!"
• When she wants someone to play with her, she'll point at the person and say, "Sit!"
• She likes to hold small things (snacks, tiny toys, etc.) in both hands and then say, "Where dah go?" Then she waits a bit, opens her hands, and says, "Dare diz!"
• When we ask her to do something or offer her a snack she has asked for, she often runs away while saying, "Aubrey!" I guess she's mimicking us calling after her when she runs away.
• When I change her diaper, she always says, "Poo poo!" And when that's not true, I say, "No," and she responds, "No poo poo, juss soggy."