AT LEAST Thirty-Second Thursday

Lots to report on the Serena front today!

First thing this morning, I decided to weigh that little girl again. She's been eating more than ever the last week or so! "Seriously, kid, you just ate TWO apples! How can you POSSIBLY be hungry still!?" Anyway, as of this morning she was 20 pounds! That's up 1.5 pounds in the last 2 weeks! WOW! I think we've finally hit a growth spurt! :)

This morning, Grandma, Aunt Anna & I were sitting around in the little room outside Serena's room chatting and watching Serena play with her toys. After a while, she brought her book of nursery rhymes over to Grandma and wanted to look through it with her. Serena loves turning pages more than hearing stories right now, so Grandma was barely getting in more than the first line or two of any of the nursery rhymes before Serena would flip to another page. When she came to "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," Grandma started singing it. I happened to have the xylophone right in front of me, so I pecked out the tune for her. Serena was enthralled! She left that page open and just listened. And whenever we would get to the end of a verse and stop, she would look at us expectantly for more! This afternoon, after we said goodbye to Grandma, Uncle Grant, & Aunt Anna, Serena & I came back into the house and I got busy picking up the kitchen and Serena got back to her business of playing. :) I checked on her a little while later, and she was sitting in that room again with the book of nursery rhymes on her lap opened to the "Old MacDonald" page and she was singing!!! It was SO cute, I just stood back in the kitchen and didn't dare disturb her in case she might stop! It was all babble, but it was definitely connected and sing-song-y! And she left it on that page the whole time!

One more thing before I wrap this up! Serena finally has a new word! She can say "Book"! Well, it actually comes out as "Boop," but we'll take what we can get! I've tried to encourage her to say it for quite a while now (I figured it uses sounds she already makes, plus it's something she loves, so it would probably be relatively easy to get her to say it). This evening, she brought me a book and I tried again, "This is a book. Can you say 'book'? Book! You try it, Serena!" And she ACTUALLY DID!!! "Boop!" in her high voice! Haha!

In today's video, we have a clip of Serena working on getting her audience to clap for her (one of her favorite things to do when she knows she has an audience, haha!). There's also a clip of her climbing up on the game cube followed by a little bit of chatter. And at the very end is a clip of her right before bed tonight (you'll see her tired eyes in that one, haha!) saying "Boop"!