Zoe's new composition

Zoe has taken to the piano.  In fact, if I try to play, she will come over and will burrow her head into my lap and cry, until I let her play.  Or if I try to show her how I play a song, she will listen for a minute or two and then start throwing my hands off the keys.  So I caught her here, making up her own composition.  Pardon the coughing; I'm sorta sick.

My eclectic being

We scored some cute new photos of the baby child. In them one may notice my love of the eclectic. Sometimes it gets me in trouble. But it reminds me of my neighborhood, which is quite the melting stew. (I love mixed metaphors....)

What a neighborhood, though -- we have big houses, and small. Crumbly dilapidated and fresh newly spanking. Some of these houses are ancient mansions, picture perfect. A few have crusty dogs who will chew off your ankles if you let them. Some are shabby chic, with a little trash salsa on the side. (Which reminds me -- I have some yard work that is barking at me to finish it....)

There's a cute bunch of chickens who just moved in down the way. The lawns styles vary from All Native All the Time to pure green manicured, and a lot of in-between. Dandelions thrive, and why not? Zoe loves to pick them and give them as gifts. I haven't always adored them, but seeing them from a child's point of view can change things.

We have a good sampling of the cultural ethnicities of the world, and probably the religions as well. Spicy!

Here she is wearing a cute little Asian top with an all-American Khaki jumper and her da da's hat.

the war for beauty cc

Zoe and I went on a walk, sans stroller, in our neighborhood today.  It involved untangling ourselves from the dog's leash a lot, protest and sit-ins at having to stop at cross walks, impromptu lessons in not picking up trash, a conversation with a 5 year old about the letter S which he says stands for Sylvia, as well as Star Wars, and an admonition not to eat the violets.    Then it started to get really hot, and I had to haul her home over my shoulder, like a sack of potatoes.  I was starting to get really hot and sweaty, and the lessons about not picking up trash and cigarette butts were getting me down, so I decided to do a face mask to feel refreshed.  When Zoe gave me a look like, geez yer scary, I explained to her that sometimes we have to fight for beauty.....

Zoe likes to meow

Zoe has been meowing at our outdoor cat who sits in our window sill for about a month now off and on, and I finally got it on tape. Here she also appears to be trying to figure out a way to put the play glasses on the cat and give her a toy bird.

Zoe Words

While I am thinking about it, I wanted to make a list of Zoe's one hit wonders. If you are a diligent reader of this post, and you should be, Mom and Dad, then you'll remember that Zoe said "Oh Yea" on multiple occasions when she was about 3 1/2 months old. It wasn't a pure Oh Yeah -- there was always a little baby gurgle and some alphabet soup inserted in random spots. But she would say it relatively frequently. Suddenly as miraculously as it appeared however, it disappeared. Probably when we started noticing it and commenting on it a lot


For a long time though, she just had fun with babble, and we enjoyed the sounds but didn't bother to attempt to translate.

Now, she has started to come up with what I'm calling "one-hit wonders" -- just one-time utterances of understandable words that make sense in context. But that she has never repeated since. Lest I forget them, I am making a list here. I'll include a little bit of the background.

*Up -- today we went on a hike in Millcreek Canyon. We were encouraging her to look up, when out of her mouth comes "Up."

*Adios -- Mom & Dad gave us a great educational toy -- La Granja Sonora -- also known as the Talking Farm. It's a fun bilingual 'farm' that has different animals you can press and they will say their name & the noise they make -- in either English or Spanish. If you neglect it, it encourages you to come back and play. After 2 or 3 tries of this encouragement, if you are simply otherwise occupied, it will say "bye bye" or "Adios". She plays with it constantly. About a week or so ago, it said "Adios" and she said it back.... with a little bit of that baby babble alphabet soup attached at the end. She's also starting to get more items correct when the man asks her to pick the right animal -- the other day she got three right in a row, in Spanish -- el caballo negro, la pata amarilla & la oveja blanca.....

*Oh My Goodness -- Zoe & Rolf were spending a lot of time playing together about a month or so ago -- Rolf is my nephew -- about 2 1/2 and quite the talker. Like most children his age, he repeats some of his favorite phrases with regularity. He was oh-my-goodness-ing a lot and Zoe got caught up in his exclamatory zeal and threw one out there. If I had to spell it, it would be " omigoognigabrladn"

*bagel -- We camped out in Jeff's parent's backyard at the beginning of the fall season to check out Provo Canyon & the beautiful fall colors. We found an awesome hike, by the way. Afterwards, we went through a drive through to get a bite to eat and were discussing the merits of bagels. Suddenly from the backseat (and with no alphabet soup trailing) comes "bagel". All of these happen so quickly and without precedent that you always wonder if you really heard what you think you heard.

*I know -- I say this a lot apparently, when trying to comfort Zoe when she's upset about something. The other night she was having a sad baby moment, and crying about not being able to sleep or some such thing. During the middle of her crying, to comfort herself she said "I know...." and resumed her sad baby tears.

These ones are the more popular ones that keep coming out:

*doggy -- This has come out on several occasions, not quite fully formed but in the proper context more or less. I haven't heard it come out without some extra letters attached.

*baby -- she says 'ba ba' so often that this one is almost a question mark. Of course we like to call her baby a lot so maybe she is saying it just as often as we do.

*mama -- does a lot of mama's which I interpreted to me from the get go, even though they may have meant something else originally. I guess I'm not the only mama who has done that ; )

*no no no -- I first noticed that she was copying me doing the infamous 'no' word when she shut my computer off in the middle of working. Buttons are obsessions with her; She also keeps making my page disappear as I type right now because she has figured out some function of the mouse that I myself have no clue how to use-- and does a little 'no no no' to accompany her naughtiness.

*ahem -- Jeff is a chronic throat clearer so Zoe does a little imitation of him...all the time, each time he does it

Baby Flashback

Jeff just figured out how to get some old photos from our old camera -- Zoe when she was a little over 3 months old, and Jeff was a novice at baby dressing. It's pretty cute -- I'll try to post some other pics so you can see the mismatched socks.

Rolf sticks it to Zoe

My sister Angela (hi Ang) -- has been very helpful with tending Zoe when I am in the office. Today, Rolf her 2 year old had fun decorating Zoe with stickers.