Having a tree is a whole different experience this year now that Rosalie understands things like "Just touch it with one finger." Rosalie helped me decorate the tree this year, and it was actually pretty fun overall, even with the mild baby-in-a-chinashop jitters on my part. Here she is with Owain, showing us her very first ornament. If you click on the image to enlarge and look carefully, you can make out the profile of the little snowman with his carrot nose.
For Rosalie, the tree is IT. We spend most of our time near the tree these days. It's the first thing she says hello to when she comes in the room, and she is often reluctant to leave it. She is especially into lights, both in our house and on houses decorated in the neighborhoods.
Though she is clearly an angel, the night she & I picked out this ornament was after a second frustrating and fruitless effort to buy Rosalie new shoes. She really loves her current shoes, which are now coming apart at the seams since they are more than a size too small at this point. I have a new strategy for our third attempt, but we are definitely open to any ideas if you have some.
We're also learning more intimately about the whole Terrible Two concept. The part that is most interesting to me is the abrupt swings in mood that have no apparent relevance to the world that I see. She'll be smiling and laughing, then--literally--instantanously grimacing, pouting, or even yelling for no apparent reason. As with the shoes, we are strategizing, but isn't that kind of like strategizing the ocean's waves? As if we could control high tide? I guess our strategy is about how we wish to react & interact. Build a house on stilts, or get a life raft? Seriously, though, I think we have a good plan 'o' action in place, so that helps a great deal.
Meanwhile, Rosalie's mind is continuing to blossom. We were putting on our coats the other day, and she pointed to herself and her own coat and said, "Me." Then she pointed to me wearing my coat and said, "Yours." She was also holding her water bottle yesterday and saying "Mine wa." (as in, "My water.") I love that she's getting the pronouns now.
I also think it's interesting that when she builds phrases or sentences, that the order is often different from what we usually say. For example, I would say, "Climb stairs." Rosalie says, "Stairs. Climb." Or I would say "Rosalie is doing it by herself!" and she says "Self. Rose." Another example of the unique word order is in her adjectives. She usually describes her toy as "Horse blue" rather than "Blue horse." I wonder if this is a usual thing with language development. It's fascinating.
She has an incredible singlemindedness that eclipses the focus of many grownups. I love to see it in action. She has the ability to get sidetracked by someone, then return to what she was previously doing before being interrupted. Amazing! This is not to be taken for granted. Not everyone is capable of doing this, regardless of age.
Well, that's Rosalie in a nutshell for today. I just realized that I haven't posted a picture from Thanksgiving yet. I need to borrow some focus from my kid.
