Terrorising the Library, Chasing Birds and "No Deal"

If you haven't noticed, I have been making a big effort to take Beth out somewhere everyday... as she is getting older, (yes... she is just sooo "old" at 16 months) I can see that the stimulation of going out and seeing something different each day is beneficial for her.

So this morning we went to the Chermside library. It had heavily rained overnight and this morning, so going outdoors to a park was just not an option . So I signed up for a library card (only took a few minutes) and then Beth and I explored the library. It is a nice spacious library with a kids area set up with boxes of picture books and board books in the middle and then paperback books for the older kids on the shelves. There is also a wooden ship with cushions in it for the kids to get comfy in and read books and a racing car with foam seats and steering wheels. So Beth and I looked at some books and picked a book out for her to borrow and I also found a Hi5 dvd for her... Then we snuggled down in the cushions in the boat and read a book... and after a story, she tottered off and started pulling books off the shelves! I had to distract her and walked her over to the racing car, which she took a liking to and sat and turned the wheel for a little while. Once she had finished playing there... I decided to venture out and look at some books for me to borrow... we passed a rack of CDs on the way, and Beth decided that the CDs looks much better on the floor than they did on the racks! And then we passed some spinning racks of videos and Beth spun and spun and spun the racks around... We finally made it to the aisle where the photography books were and I had hoped Beth would look at the books on the lower shelves while I had a browse through... but nope... she went *running* down the aisle... and then disappeared out of sight... I put the book I was looking at down and went following her and she had already run halfway down the next aisle and was ready to continue running through the maze of aisles... She is such a little busybody! I (optimistically) decided to try again... so brought her back to the photography books and tried to browse again and Beth went giggling and sprinting off again... She cracks me up with her mischievous... I have to do my best "Mummy-said-no-don't-do-that" voice to try and keep her in line and get her to behave. When I caught up with her, she had grabbed one of those stands (used to hold books up) off a table and was wandering around waving it in her hand! At this point, I just decided to grab the most appealing photography book I could find (based purely on the title) off the shelves and we went and borrowed our books and then headed home. We had had quite enough excitement at the library for one morning!

After her nap, we had some lunch and then we did our weekly grocery shop, came home and frantically put away the groceries before heading out to the park before it started raining... it had gotten a bit warmer during the day, so I was hopeful the park wouldn't be too wet... It was just about to start spitting raining when we got there, but the weather held out for half an hour or so and Beth got some good outdoor time... she got to drive the car at the park... and went down the slippery dip (I taught her how to climb up and walk over (holding my hand) to the slippery dip today... big milestone!)... But she also had fun tottering around in the grass and developed a fasciation with birds... she started chasing a sparrow type bird.. then moved on to the bigger peewee bird... and then tried to go after a black crow... I tried to stop her going after the crow, 'cos it was really mean looking and looked like it could peck your eyes out!

We picked up Phan from work at 5:15pm... and then whilst i was finishing off cooking dinner Phan and Beth were watching "Deal No Deal" (the TV show on Channel 7)... and Phan started trying to get her to do the "No Deal" arm motion (where you cross your arms in front of yourself and say "NO DEAL!")... Well, our smart little cookie, quickly picked it up (much to my chagrin!)... but she does look so funny when she does it... so we can now add "No Deal" to the repetoire of things she can do now!

I think we are starting to see the beginning of words happening... Well, I think she's been doing it a while 'cos she babbles incessantly, but I just haven't been tuned in enough to understand her... so I've been making an active effort to try and understand her.... she says something that sounds like "What's that?" quite often... and then "Up" and putting her arms in the air... and she's really good at saying "Mumumumum" and "Dadadadada"... So working on the talking... Just trying to talk to her lots ... I wonder sometimes if I unintentionally speak too verbosely to her and that's why she does a lot of continous babbling rather than forming singular words... so I'm trying to speak in much simpler terms to her... You are always worryign when you're a mother... before I was worrying about her walking and now she's walking about just fine... so now I've moved onto worrying about talking! I tell myself I shouldn't worry too much, because she understands me just fine... She'll talk in her own time (I hope!)