Mama's girl

I had been waiting around to write up this post until I had pictures to go with it, but Rosa is now so aware of the camera that I can't really catch her doing anything candid unless she's super distracted. So no pictures this time - just stories.

I think it was this past Tuesday, Jeff got home while I was feeding Rosa her dinner. She had a good dinner (this is starting to be true more and more of the time ... for now at least!) and Jeff and I were clapping for her. She got so excited and she finally started clapping - really clapping! She had sort of accidentally put her hands together before, but this was sustained, gleeful clapping. Hooray! She got so excited clapping that she started doing her other new trick - vigorously shaking her head NO - at the same time. Now I think she associates the two together. The next day when she was headed for the kitchen garbage and I emphatically said NO and dramatically shook my head NO, she started shaking her head NO and clapping with glee! So cute and funny, except for that she kept heading for the garbage. Eventually she'll get it all straightened out.

The other thing that turned on this week is putting things into boxes, buckets, bags, or even pockets! She had been taking things OUT of containers for a while, but never putting them in. Now, with the same manic determination as she uses for pretty much everything else she does, she puts her cloth birds INTO and OUT OF her birdhouse; she puts her blocks INTO and OUT OF her bucket; she puts her rubber duckies INTO and OUT OF her bath cup; she even put some of her blocks INTO and OUT OF my jacket pocket after I showed her how. It is so cool to see this happening because I remember a time when I was trying to show her how to take birds out of her birdhouse, and all she wanted to do was chew on the birdhouse. It just shows you that everything happens in its own time.

And finally, as the title of this post indicates, within the past week or two, Rosa has really started to want to be with Mama. Daddy's pretty good sometimes, but if Mama's around, he's only good for a few seconds. And even when I'm the only one home with Rosa, often times if I leave the room even for a few seconds, the little corners of the mouth turn down and the tears and panic start. I know this is a very normal phase... just one I was hoping maybe Rosa would skip. But I'm sure she'll grow out of it, and then someday I'll miss it!

I really hope we can get a video of the clapping and head-shaking together - it's just so much excitement!