Funny Girl

Millie is in a very fun stage these days. She loves to make us laugh, and she's pretty good at it. One thing that never fails to draw a laugh out of me is her elephant noise. I learned many years ago to do a pretty good elephant impersonation which necessarily involves raising my arm above my head like an elephant trunk. I've made the elephant noise many times for Millie whenever an opportunity has presented itself. She has finally picked up on it herself, so every time she sees an elephant she raises her arm above her head and makes a trumpeting sound. It's not very good, but it is hilarious! I'm glad to see I'm teaching her some special skills.

Mark has also been teaching Millie some new things. He has been great about grilling her on her body parts. She can point to her head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, cheeks, chin, ears, teeth, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, elbows, wrists (sometimes), legs, knees, ankles (sometimes), toes, feet, and of course belly button. She loves to point them out on herself, Daddy, Mommy, and anybody else who might be around or Skyping with us. She can say 'eye', 'ear', and 'elbow'. Except that elbow sounds more like Bilbo. One day, Mark taught her to say, "Niener, niener, niener!" And that might sound rude, but it cracks us up when she says, "Nee-no, nee-no, nee-no!" Millie is really good at finding things for us if we ask her -- pictures in books, random toys, shoes, etc. If she can't immediately find what we ask her for, she throws up her arms and makes a noise that sounds a lot like a muffled, "I don't know!" We intentionally ask her for things that are nowhere to be seen just to get her to make this funny gesture.

Millie also has started to get really attached to certain toys. She regularly sleeps with her green blankie, two stuffed dogs, a baby doll, and a sippy cup of water. She insists on having every one of them, and often tries to carry them all around herself to her utter frustration when they all fall to the ground repeatedly.

One solution to her toy dropping problem is to put things into her stroller and push them around. Lately she is always pushing around her baby doll and Elmo in this stroller. We even had to take them with us into the library the other day. She has to make sure they are buckled in, and if her baby's hat falls off she whines until we put it back on. If I tell her to give her baby a kiss, she'll nuzzle her head and coo at her. She's such a good little mommy!