27 Month Update

This past month, Zoe tried hot wings for the first time (we wiped the sauce off a medium wing) and enjoyed it. She does like spicy food - I blame myself.

She's such a jabber-mouth. As with the past several months, she's still copying and attempting to say everything she hears, no matter who is saying it. I caught her copying someone in the store the other night as they were passing by, having a conversation. She's also said her first swear word - thanks again to me. Some other things she's saying:

"Hello, it's me. Goodbye" (on her pretend phone)
"Bootz" (pointing to my bra or boobs)
"I yu-uhvoo, Mommee" (I love you, Mommy)
"Right dare!" (pointing at anything like "cow, right dare!")
"Hold on tight" (she does this in the car or when she's got her little dragons on Lannie's back, riding the dog)
"It's a lobster, right there, over there, hey!" (she loves Red Lobster shrimp and seeing the lobsters in the tank so much that she now knows where the restaurant is and makes sure we know)
"please", "thank you" and "you're welcome" have become habit for her. She always says please and thank you. Sometimes the "Thank you" comes out as "Thanks, juice" or "thanks, help" - the "for the" is an understood.

She's been going through a growth spurt we think over the past few weeks. Her naps have been 3 hours on some days and days when Mommy works, she sleeps in until 7 or so. Not sure why this can't happen on my days off....

She helps get her juice or milk out of the fridge. She can open it by herself and gets the jug out and hands it to us. She's also helping us by doing simple tasks like taking things to her room, helping set the table with food from the fridge, going in and washing her hands/face after dinner, letting the dog in our out of the backyard, and other things.

This past month we've started giving Lannie time-outs just like Zoe. Sometimes the dog is bad and we scold her, but we've also incorporated time-outs so Zoe understands that Lannie has been bad and when you're bad, you get time-outs. We've been giving Zoe time-outs for the past year or so. She'll get them for hitting or kicking, which seems to be a problem with her for the past few months. Mostly, it's directed to the dog or cat and she's not being mean...we're not sure why she's doing it. We certainly don't hit or kick the animals. In general, she's a good kid, though. We just want to be sure she understand that she needs to be more gentle with the pets. She does love them, she just wants to pester them all day long.

Coming up in October.... Mom takes vacation to spend the week at home while Dad travels to Seattle for training on the new Microsoft Zune, which he'll be selling on the weekends at various Best Buy's and Circuit City's. Also, Hannah will start coming over during the week for Daddy to babysit. She'll be 3 months old when she starts coming to our house daily. Zoe loves babies, she's going to love having Hannah around. It's just for a few months until she's a little older and then she'll join her brother, Ian, at daycare. Also this month, construction should begin on our new house.

Love,
Zoe's Mommy