Maggie stuff

My dad always told me that he enjoyed my brother and me more and more the older we got. I was astounded at first because how could you not enjoy a baby? I'm beginning to see his point now. I enjoyed being with Maggie when we first came home, although a large portion of our days were spent sitting on the floor, watching TV shows on DVD as she had absolutely no idea how to play with toys and she did not want me out of her sight for more than a second. As she learned to walk on her own and sign, I enjoyed her even more because she was more independent and I had more of an inkling as to what she wanted rather than guessing what the grunts and "uhhhhhhh"s mean. Now she is learning to speak in 2 or 3 word sentences and is able to entertain herself quite well for decent portions of time.

This weekend I watched her put all of her little farm animals in a soup pot, liberally squirt them with (fake) mustard and stir them gently before offering me the first taste. Yum! She loves to push her stroller around and she loves her grocery cart. Her favorite thing to do with the grocery cart is to fill it to the brim with Little People, play food, books and random other stuff and then dump it all over the place. There is no cleaning as you go with Maggie. It is fruitless. I just let her make a huge mess and then we clean it up together. As we made the brine for the turkey last week, Maggie continually exclaimed, "Maggie cooking!" I talked to Brooke, Emma's mom, last week and she told me about Emma referring to herself in the third person. Maggie does that constantly. Maggie eating! Maggie playing! Maggie sleepy! Maggie splashing! Tonight we ate dinner in the den and Maggie ate at her little table. She spilled some Jello on the floor and I picked up what I could see. She got down and picked up a miniscule bit of Jello and handed it to me. Maggie Jello!

Earlier tonight she got on her Elmo rocking horse and softly sang, "Rockie, rockie" and then suddenly got off and tried to help her baby doll ride. Unfortunately, her little arms did not quite reach and Baby Doll ended up smashing her face on Elmo's handlebars and then fell to the ground. "Oh no!" Maggie exclaimed and comforted Baby. Later on, Maggie brought me a bandaid from her doctor kit (it is much like a cuff bracelet) and put it on my wrist. Then she kissed the bandaid.

We read "The Sweet Smell of Christmas" tonight before bed which is a Richard Scarry book that I remember having when I was a kid. It has scratch and sniff sections and on each of those pages, Maggie would smell each one and then wave her hand in front of her face and say, "Shew!"

My favorite thing that she says, though is, "Happy!" Me too, sweet girl. Me too.