Word Nerd

Pippa loves words. Words on paper. Words on tags. Words on bags. Words on cups. Words that rhyme. To be completely honest I'm a little surprised she has only said a couple of words. Mommy is not one of them. She babbles dada and said bye to Grandma once, but her true first word was book.

She has a few board books and soft books that we read all day long. Then when mom can't stand to say "Goodnight noises everywhere" one more time, I let Pippa play alone, with her words. This both excites and frustrates. She loves turning pages and touches the text, but some of those books are awkwardly large for her small little hands. The books get flipped and stuck with the pages plastered to the floor. And then begins the tantrum. Because this also leads to Pippa lying on her stomach and pushing herself backwards away from her books.

On Halloween I decided to interrupt the cycle and pulled her into my lap instead. Then I asked if she wanted her book. She smiled and repeated "book." Twice that happened. Now, a week later I returned to the living room to find her sprawled on the floor reading a magazine and talking about it with her new friend, the baby boy on the cover.

Halloweeny

Two writers sitting on the couch, lamenting on the task of documenting Baby's First Halloween. When Pippa reads this in 16 years she may try for emancipation. Especially when she learns that I ate her special cupcake. Or that I failed to find a pumpkin large enough to carve and we "borrowed" the neighbors for a photograph.


The decorations were purchased a mere 6 days before the 31st and my spooky music was a bust. To top the failure, Pippa fell asleep at 6:45 pm, the excitement of seeing too many goblins an ghosts (actually we got a lot of pirates). When she woke up an hour later we did a quick costume change and tried to teach the concept of handing out candy. She's great at grabbing toostie rolls from the bowl, not so good at giving them to others.