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Anna is obsessed with kissing. Could she be any cuter?? (I ask that completely objectively.) She also likes to give "hard tisses". This is where she presses her mouth really hard against yours, then she wraps her entire arms around your head to get better leverage and presses REALLY hard. Eventually she starts laughing (with her lips still mushed up against yours) and finally she lets go and points at the baby slobber now covering the lower half of your face and declares you, "SLIMEY!!"

At bedtime, Mommy & Daddy get goodnight 'tisses'. Then while she's supposed to be falling asleep, and I'm laying on the floor next to her bed, she leans up and peers over the side and says "Tisses." There's no laying back down without one. OK, a kiss. "Twwoooo." OK, two kisses. "Stheeeee". OK, three kisses. Who's idea was it to teach her to count anyway? "Fooouuwr." OK, four kisses. "Stheeee." So I say, "No, we already had three kisses." Pause. "Fiffe."

She is so cute. I know I'm supposed to be holding the hard 'it's bedtime' line, but how can you be mad at that. What an angel. We are so lucky and blessed

This weekend, my mom was watching Charlotte's Web with Anna while we worked on finished her office remodel (which we're finally done with - YEAH!). Anna has seen it before - no biggie. But this time, she was actually following the story. When it got to the part where Wilbur the pig has to go sleep in the barn instead of with Charlotte, Anna got inconsolable. She cried, hiccuped, had crocodile tears and was just distraught. My mom brought her out to us and she kept saying "Pig! Pig!" in this teary, hiccupy voice. It was so sad. I tried to go watch that part with her so that she could see he was OK and he had friends in the barn and he was happy, but she was having none of it. We all felt so bad. That whole day, she stayed a little emotional, and at bedtime, she woudn't let Curtis or I out of her sight. Poor baby! We finally gave up and getting her to sleep and let her sit up and watch TV with us, and she ran out to her toy box and got her Baby Einstein flash card of the pig and kept saying, "Pig!". I think she may be scarred for life. So funny to see her 'get' some of these things now. She has such a tender heart. But as my dad said jokingly, 'better not try Old Yeller just yet'.

I signed Anna and I up for these classes at the community center, once a week. Ours is for 12-24 month olds, but most of the kids are close to Anna's age. It is so fun. We both have a blast. We have free play time with all kinds of drums, bells, shakers, pretend grocery store stuff, blocks to climb, etc for about 20 min. Then we all do a pretend activity together (like going to the store). Then we sign songs and dance around, play with the parachute, do a craft, and sit ans listen to a story with a snack. So fun! But today Anna got fixated on this little pretend flip cell phone. She walked around the ENTIRE time with this thing pressed to her ear. During the songs, while she pushed her cart, during the story, etc. It was hilarious. People would say, "Are you talking to someone?" Anna - "Yesh!". "Who is it?" Anna - "Bapa!" (Which means Grandpa.) She was soo cute. But then we had to take the phone away and we had serious, open mouth with no sound, alligator tears, hysterics. We called Daddy on my cell phone when we got to the car and all was soon forgotten.

Then tonight we had to do pictures with Olan Mills for our church directory. But the only appt left was at 9pm! Ugh! And, once we got there, they were running about an hour late. I thought - no chance. But Anna hung in there. She was a trooper and the pics came out great. But now it's 1:15 am and I've been working since we got home and I'm tired!!!

Oh - and tomorrow we try to neuter Rigby again. On Tuesday he wolfed down Anna's peanut butter sandwich as we were walking out the door at 7:45am. I told Anna we were going to need to keep the vet appt anyway, because I was about to kill her dog! I'd better stop saying things like that to her before she really understands, huh? hahaha

So - we have a little parrot in our house now. She repeats everything. And when we slip up and say something we don't want repeated, we usually follow it up with, "Oh...don't say that." So today, as we're walking through Wal-Mart, out of the blue, Anna starts yelling - DON'T SAY THAT!!! DON'T SAY THAT!!! DON'T SAY THAT!!! Hillarious.

Or the other day in the car, we're driving along, and IMHO, Curtis wasn't paying attention to the fact that traffic was stopping in front of us. So, I kept grabbing the 'oh shit' handle and saying "HONEY!". Then Curtis would notice it was stopped and slam on the brakes.So Anna starts yelling from the back seat "HONEY!! HONEEYYYY!" over and over and over again. Curtis says, "See what you sound like?!" If was hilarious. I totally got busted.

Or the time she repeated my "oh blow me" to the lady honking and screaming behind me because I wouldn't pull out into the intersection and block it. Boy....Sunday School is going to be fun.

I finally think I know what the person who thought up that saying was thinking of. It obviously wasn't a long, quiet, peaceful uninterupted night's sleep. Because babies don't sleep. Ever. Well...ours doesn't anyway. She punctuates the night with, "Hnnnd. Hnnnd. HNNNND!" Which is Anna-ese for, "Mommy, I love you dearly so please hold me hand, and no, Daddies won't do - only because he doesn't have finger nails to play with." But I digress...

I think they were thinking of that moment when they actually fall asleep. See...all you cry-it-out-ers are missing this. I was just thinking today how much I love watching Anna fall asleep. She used to do it nursing, and then while we rocked her, but now it's while I lay next to her bed on my bean bag pillow and hold her hand. And I close my eyes so she thinks I'm sleeping too - but I sometimes keep them open a tiny slit just to watch her eyes get heavy, and droop, and finally drift shut. Such a perfect picture it makes my heart ache. That must be what they mean by 'sleep like a baby'. *sigh*

So if all your friends decided to jump off a bridge, would you do it too?

Apparently so. So here is my blog. Not that I have much free time to keep it up, but it's a neat thing to have if you use it. But, since, as usual, it's almost 11pm and everyone else is asleep and I'm up (supposed to be) finishing the 2 batches of invoices I'm behind on...I should get to work. I'll try to be a little bit attentive here though. I promise. No...really.