The funny things she does...

What's this? An actual Ned update?! Actual words?!? Deary me. :) (Let me apologize in advance for the lack of photos this post--I can only seem to do one or the other these days.)

So, we co-sleep at our house. It works well for us. If Ned makes up in the middle of the night, she looks over and asks, "Mama?" and I say, "I'm right here, go nigh-nights." And, generally, she does. Nice. (Except for that occasional little span of time from about 1:00am-3:00am that I guess is best referred to as, "turn around in every direction kicking my feet and flailing my arms" time. Ned, that is. Not me.) Anyway, waking up in the morning to Ned in my face saying "Hi! Hi!" is absolutely adorable, as is her recent every darn morning waking request for, "Big Bird? Dan Yao?" (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly--can't seem to find the pinyin translation for Big Bird on the web.***) Anyway, Ned is absolutely obsessed with Big Bird in China. And I do mean obsessed. She has watched the movie from start to finish every day for months now. (And you know I'm not a fan of kids zoning on TV, but she LOVES this darn movie. It really warms my heart, because she's really picked up on one part of one of the songs where the Muppets go, "In Chiiiiiinaaaaaaa" and throughout the day at random times she'll belt out, "In Chiiiiiinaaaaaa." Sweet.

Other funny things she does...

• Sings random words to the tune of the Darius Rucker song "Alright." Such as "shooo-ooo-ooes, shooo-ooo-oooes" or "su-u-pper, su-u-pper."
• Says, "yeee-yeee-yeee" with super big eyes when she is super excited about something. (I've picked this little colloquialism up from her and now find myself "yeee-yeee-yeeeing" when something is exciting...earned me a seriously odd look in a meeting at work...)
• Refers to herself as "baby." So, if I've got a toy she wants, she'll point to it and say "Baby? BABY?!? BABY?!?!?!", meaning hand it over.
• Counts from 1 to 12...and ever since she was sick with a cold and I told her she was "sick", the number "six" has morphed into "sick". "One, twooooo, tree, fowe, fiyee, SICK, sebhen, eight..."
• Loves pretending...pretend showers complete with putting pretend soap on the pretend shower puff (complete with a loud "plooopfh" noise), pretend bandaids on pretend owies (she even dictates the color of the pretend "bannay" ), pretend getting goat food from the pretend machine on the wall (you know, petting zoo style) and feeding me or Baba (pretend goats we are) from her hand.
• Her tea set is well used. She makes "tea" several times a day for us. Then she asks, "Ceem?" (cream) and "Sooker?" (sugar) Even Mao-Mao gets tea. (He doesn't play along as well as me and Baba, though.) Speaking of Mao-Mao, we have called him that since we got home in February, but recently Dan explained to Ned that Mao-Mao's name is actually Hank. So now she calls out, "Haaaaaaaaank?" when looking for him. And he no longer gags at the sight of her. Pure bliss.
• She's obsessed with Playmobil. You know, the kind intended for 4 years and older? The kind full of choking hazards? Yep, loves the stuff. Can play with it for an hour or more at a time. Our Playmobil collection started with some Tuesday Morning clearance Easter sets with rabbits instead of people...so all Playmobil is now referred to as "rabbits". "Play rabbits???"
• Has two regular "lovies"--a stuffed turtle ("turto") from our awesome neighbors Bob Bob and Nee Nee and a Smurf ("Murf") she picked out at Target. Turto and/or Murf go everywhere. I love it. Seriously cracks me up. The other day we were outside with Turto and she dropped him a few times (followed by picking him up and mumbling, "dirty, shake" while shaking him off) before her eyes lit up and she exclaimed "ERGO!" (the brand baby carrier we have) and stuffed him in her shirt.
• Gets super excited about planes flying overhead. Depending on the wind patterns, we can get quite a bit of lower-flying plane traffic. She hears them and yells, "Plane! PLANE!!" as she stumbles around trying to catch a glimpse. Even when planes are tiny--only a dot at the end of the white exhaust "tail" in the sky--she can spot them. "Plane! PLANE!!"
• Loves books and will sit and read for an hour. Her favorite right now is this book from our friends Cor and Jer called Iggy Peck, Architect. She LOVES this book. Every night she asks for Iggy Peck. There's this one part where Iggy almost gets sent to the Principal's office and she gets this glint in her eye and says, "Nawwwwwwwdy." Dear God, I hope she's not getting any ideas...
• Insists on inspecting her poop. She poops every morning, generally at 8:00am. I change her diaper and she says, without fail, "See it?" And I show her her "product" and then she describes it--big or little, orange, brown or green, etc...
  

Never dull, this kid. Never dull. ;)

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***Update for inquiring minds: Mandarin-speaking Juli tells me it's 'Da Niao'. So there. Now you know. :)