What has Jane been up to?

What has Jane been doing this month? I know you're dying to hear all the details! Or at least I am getting more and more sentimental as my time with just Mom & Jane starts winding down. I find that I want to jot down every inconsequential thing she does, thinking to myself, "I want to remember every little thing about her at this age." So, I MIGHT try to narrow down my huge list of jot-downs, but probably not.

*Jane yelled at me and I told her if she yelled again she would go to time-out. Her reply was, "Whatever, mom."

*We finally tried out putting Jane in a big girl bed (i.e. removed the side of her crib). She loved playing in it throughout the day, but when it came time for going to bed, we did her little routine, and then she started to look nervous. She pointed to the crib side that was up against the wall and said, "I need that!" So I put it back on because why mess with a good thing?

*Jane has a little bear puzzle thing and there are different bear faces with different expressions. She was playing with it during church, and when she came across the face that looked mad, she demonstrated it by yelling extremely loud (like she does herself when she is mad): AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

*When she sees Daddy putting on deodorant, she says she needs some. Then Daddy gives her a dab on each pit from a little trial size deodorant.

*Jane wanted to watch Signing Time one night and Matt mumbled something like "stupid show...." and Jane said, "Signing Time not stupid, Dad."

*Jane often asks to "count" but it can mean a number of things. Sometimes she literally wants to count the number of objects she sees, but it also means that she wants to say each letter in a sign, or point out each color in a sign, etc. So we'll be driving along and she'll see something she wants to "count" and gets pretty frustrated when it goes by too quickly for her to finish it.

*Jane is very into her light and dark colors and into what "matches." If there is a red trim on her bowl she'll say it matches the red Elmo on her cup. If she asks for a purple spoon and I hand her one she'll say "Not dark purple! Light purple!" And one time we were doing an experiment where Jane tried to blow different objects across the table with a straw. We separated the ones she could blow vs. the ones she couldn't and I tried to teach her about the objects being heavy vs. light. When I got to a black feather I said, see, this is light. She looked so confused and said, "Not light. It's dark black."

*Jane loves to pretend. She often pretends she is going somewhere and gives us a hug and kiss bye-bye. But when I play along she acts like I'm being crazy and says, "I'm just pretending!"

*Jane is obsessed with the song "I love mommy she loves me. We love daddy, yes-sir-ee." Only she makes me sing it with all sorts of different couples. She usually keeps the married ones together: Sharon and Steve, Julie and Terrell, and a number of other aunts and uncles from the cruise. But she also branches out to friends and to stuffed animals.

*One night I heard Jane say to baby Ella, "One more minute." Then she put her in her doll crib and covered her with a blanket. Then she got a book and "read" it to her, sang a song, and said Goodnight. It was a heart melter.

*For awhile, when I would ask Jane how old I was, she would say 14. And then I would ask how old Daddy was and she would say two and a half. Hmmm...

*When something is too small for Jane she says, "It's too fit!"

*Often when I ask Jane to do something she doesn't want to do (like clean up), she says very dramatically, "I'm tired."
*Jane has been awfully agreeable for a 2 year old. All throughout the day when I explain something to her like why we can't do a certain thing she says, "Otay." I think it is so cute so I often repeat "Otay." At which point Jane tries to correct me by saying, "Not o-TAY. Otay." (But of course they sound the same).

*Jane has gotten very into her bum-bum. She likes to look at it in the mirror. And sometimes she likes to pull her pants down and show us her bum with a sly little smile. One time her and Matt were in the bathroom and she said, "I wanna see Daddy's big bum-bum." Matt of course thought that was pretty funny and started laughing. Jane kept repeating herself trying to get a straight answer, but Matt just kept laughing. Then she said "Open it, the pants! Not funny!"

*For awhile Jane played with Matt's foot (with socks on) like it was a friend of hers. She cuddled it on the couch and talked to it.

*When Jane was in her car seat I saw her lift up her legs and look at them. Then she said, "Look at my legs. They're cute. Pretty legs."

*Jane tries to copy the sound of me whistling by saying in a VERY high-pitched voice, "Fee-foo"

*About six months ago there was a night when the neurons in Jane's brain misfired when we tried to teach her two different things. First of all she was wearing a turtleneck and we told her for the first time what it was called. That was shortly followed by her hearing the trees outside creaking in the wind. It scared her but we explained that it was just the trees creaking. Still to this day when she hears the trees creaking she says, "Turtleneck scare you!"

*Jane is still a little pack rat. Several months after the disappearance of my make up brushes I found them in the tube of her butcher paper. And this month I was getting so frustrated because I couldn't find a certain pair of her shoes. Finally I found them stuffed in a toy along with some of her prescription cream I had given up on finding and a sock for which I was always searching for it's lost pair!And when Jane was playing hide-and-seek with Matt I guess she thought the toy would make a good hiding spot for herself because she frantically threw everything out of it and tried to jam her feet inside only to get frustrated and say, "Don't fit!"

*Jane has taken her singing to a whole new level. Not only have all of her songs increased in volume but she sings ALL the time. And her songs are much longer, with most of the words being unrecognizable. But I can usually pick out a few lines here and there. She is very loud and dramatic with her hands raising them up to hit the big notes, etc. She often ends her songs at the top of her lungs with the line from Annie's Tomorrow: "a day away!"When we were at the Sabin's she would sit at the piano and hit keys while singing. And for the past few trips to the grocery store she sits in the cart and belts out her tune. And I mean BELTS. I get lots of looks as she sings her loudest with her hands flailing. Whenever she hits the final note, her hands tremble as her arm and neck muscles tighten. When the note ends, she smiles, breathing heavy, like Celine Dion at a concert.

*Jane has really taken an interest to the baby in my tummy. She says "I want to hug him" and then lifts up my shirt and cuddles with my belly. Sometimes she'll say, "Get bigger, get bigger," because we've told her that when he gets bigger we'll get to see him. One night she was looking at my belly button and started trying to pull it open. Then she said like we were so silly not to have done this already, "Open it! I want to see him!"