Oh, Aubrey. She's quite the firecracker. I guess it makes sense that her new thing is to say, "Can I blow fire at you?" and then blow air on whoever she asked. Here are some other details:
- When we tell her it's time for a meal, she often contradicts us about which meal it is. Example: If I say, "Aubrey, it's dinner time!", she says, "No, it's lunch time!"
- Sometimes she says, "Mommy, will you talk to me?" when she's eating lunch by herself or playing by herself. She also often says, "Mommy, I need to tell you something." It's usually nothing, but it's still super cute. At bedtime, she has started to say, "Wait, I forgot to talk to you!" when we try to leave. It's too cute to tell her no, so we chat awhile.
- She likes to have control, so she often asks me to change my hair. If it's pulled back, she asks me to let it down. If it's down, she asks me to pull it back.
- She has become obsessed with nail polish ever since I got a pedicure, so I told her I could paint her toenails. She got super excited and picked out pink sparkly polish.
- She wants to do everything herself. If we do something for her that she wanted to do herself, she'll throw a fit and then do it herself--even if it's already been done. Example: If I put her in her car seat but she wanted to climb in herself, she'll climb all the way out and then climb back in.
- She has a weird palate. She won't eat any form of potatoes and generally won't eat chicken. However, she LOVES pork chops, and she always asks for "juice" (meaning the juice from the pork chops after they've been grilled and put on a plate to rest). While we were having breakfast in Utah, she was asked if she wanted juice, and she said she did. Then she held up her plate and indicated a spot next to her bacon. We meant orange juice.
- She's into the phase of thinking something is in her closet. For awhile there, it was always a lion in the closet during the day. Now, when we put her to bed at night, there are ghosts in the closet. We have to get rid of them for her before she can sleep.
- She loves bread dough. Whenever I make bread, she asks for some dough. She plays with it for awhile, rolls it out when I'm done with the rolling pin, and then eats it. I've given up on trying to stop her.
- Oh, and as you can see from the above photo, she takes her clothes off. All. The. Time. I don't know why she does it, but it drives me crazy.
- When I get upset because something went wrong/I spilled or ruined something/I got hurt somehow, she always says, "It's okay, Mommy." She also says, "Oh, I'm sorry, Mommy." So sweet!
- She likes to compliment me, so she often says, "Oh, I like your [insert random thing here]." It started with clothing items ("Oh, I like your pretty skirt") and has now moved on to funnier things (such as "Oh, I like your waffle" and "Oh, I like your pen").
- When we were in Utah, we told her we were going to church. She said, "No, I don't want to go to nursery!" When we said, "Oh, we're only going to Sacrament meeting today," she responded, "But I want to go to nursery!" That exchange is so representative of this girl.
- She started a gymnastics class at the YMCA. For some reason, she has decided that the teacher is "not nice," so for her second and third classes, she refused to do anything. All she'd do is the low beam with me (and only me) helping her. Finally, this last time, I got her to do everything but the bar (which they hang on, swing on, etc.) with the teacher's help. I had to go with her to do everything, and the teacher actually let me help her on the tall beam, but at least she did stuff. Then she did the trampoline tumble track for the first time, but I had to hold her hand the first time she went down it and then hop/walk alongside her (on the ground) nearly every time after, but she loved it! She kept saying, "Is it my turn again?" I have high hopes for next time...
- One of her favorite things to do is play picnic. She has a box of fake food behind the couch, and she fills her little toy picnic basket with things from it, brings it over to the rug in the living room, lays down her little picnic blanket, and pulls out each item to set it down methodically. Once the basket is empty, she says she's going to get more food. On her way to the box full of food, she says, "Bye, Mommy! Have a good picnic!"
- She loves putting things behind her back and saying, "What do I have?" She gets a big smile on her face and then slowly brings it from behind her back, showing it off in such a proud way.
- She has started calling me "Mama," and I find it so sweet. She also says, "No, silly Mama!" all the time.
- One of her most-used phrases is, "say the words." She uses it in many different ways. When we ask her to say the prayer for dinner or before bed, she says, "I don't want to say the words." Or sometimes she'll say, "I want you to say the words." She will also sometimes say, "I don't want to say the words" when we ask her to apologize for something, and she says, "I want you to say the words" when she's trying to express something but can't figure out how to. It's very interesting.
- When she goes upstairs for bed, she gives whoever is not putting her to bed a kiss and a hug, which means either me or Daniel and then Carter. But recently, she has added the couches. Yes, she kisses and hugs each couch before going upstairs. No idea where that came from, but it's too cute to put an end to.
