You have started awaking around 545 am. Your dad gets you from your crib and brings you into our bed, where we all snuggle and wake up together. Your dad and I are still half asleep, but most of the time you’re wide awake. You climb on us, lean over and give us kisses, babble and eventually climb your way up your dad so you can see the dogs. You talk at them excitedly, lately pronouncing ‘da’, your word for ‘dog’. This morning your dad and I were laying down, still waking up, and you were sitting between us. You turned your body to face the dogs, spotted them, and started smiling and waving excitedly at them. It was so cute. I looked at your dad, hoping his eyes were open and that he saw you doing this. He had a huge grin on his face and I knew he’d seen you. I smiled back, thanked him for giving me you, and told him much I love our little family.

You started shaking your head ‘no’ about a month or so ago and you do it often. I’ve read that it’s good to try to minimize our use of the word ‘no’ as well as yours, so I’ve been trying to teach you to shake your head ‘yes’. You know and use the ‘more’ sign often, and so I’m trying to link it to that, signing ‘more’ to ask if you want more of something, and then when you sign ‘more’ I shake my head in an exaggerated way and say ‘yes!’. Recently you started mimicking this motion. You are so cute, first you study us doing it, and you process what we’re doing, then in about 15 seconds, you do a heavily exaggerated head shake ‘yes’. You also involve facial movement in this, opening your eyes and mouth wide when you lift your face up, then quickly and vigorously dropping your head down while closing your eyes and your mouth. You usually just do one up-down motion, like a head nod, rather than a repeating traditional ‘yes’ headshake. But it is so cute and clear what you’re trying to convey. Luckily, I caught it on video!

Today we attended a party for Logan’s second birthday. It started at the zoo and ended at their house. At the zoo we watched a wildlife show, the beginning of which was started by an announcement that there would be no standing allowed during the show. I was a little worried because you don’t like to sit still. But you did pretty well! You did get antsy and we had to pass you back and forth (your dad was sitting in the row in front of me), and we even slyly let you stand between us so it didn’t really seem like you were standing. There were all sorts of birds that flew above us and performed various tricks, and you seemed to enjoy watching them. Afterward we just walked around a bit then headed to the party.

You loved playing at Logan’s house. She had so many fun toys and places for you to explore, that even though it was your naptime you weren’t slowing down. You fell asleep on the way home and I told your dad that I thought you were so tired we could probably pick you up and transfer you from your carseat to your crib. Your dad tried this and it was a total fail. You woke up and got really upset, and even after rocking and a bottle you still didn’t fall back asleep. You ended up only napping for about 30 minutes today. We learned that in the future we’ll just let you sleep in your carseat.