Busy Day, Busy Baby

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

We kept pretty busy today. After running errands all morning, Serena took a late nap and slept so long that I finally had to wake her up so she'd be able to go to bed tonight! I'm sure she's just finally catching up on lost sleep from the weekend. :P Jordan got home a little before 3, so after getting Serena up, we walked to Sonic as fast as we could to make it before 'Happy Hour' ended at 4! We might have been a minute or two late, but they still gave us our drinks half-off! :) It was so pretty and warm out today, so it was perfect to have a sweet tea to sip as we walked back home. We stopped at the park and let Serena out of the stroller while the dogs chased each other.

Serena's interactions with Rocky are so entertaining. One minute she's trying to boss him around (to no avail); the next minute she's giving him hugs!

Serena has finally mastered the art of climbing onto the park benches and is so pleased about it!

It just seems like Serena is coming up with all kinds of new funny things to do these days! I often think throughout the day, "Oh, I need to remember to write about that on the blog tonight!" Too often I forget, though. :( I tried to brainstorm a bit so I could do a little catch-up tonight, so here's a few anecdotes from recent days! :)

The way Serena plays with her baby is changing a lot lately. She brings her baby along to have her diaper changed or to sit in her high chair with her while she eats. Today, she gave her baby a ride on the horsie, too. When I was changing Serena's diaper this evening, she was actually tickling her baby (something Daddy had been doing to Serena right before we went to change her diaper)! She wiggled her fingers at the baby's neck and said, "Tick, tick, tick, tick!" Another funny thing she did with her baby today: Serena is not allowed to touch the computer, though her little hands often 'sneak' up to the keyboard if you are holding her and then she gets in trouble. Well, today she made her baby's hand reach up and touch the computer! Isn't that funny?! I was like, "No, baby, you cannot touch the computer either. Just like Serena can't touch the computer." I wasn't really sure how to handle the situation (I mean, Serena wasn't doing it, but she sort of was?), but I thought it was really interesting that Serena was 'acting that out' with her baby!

Serena has gotten a couple Valentines in the mail over the last few days. I read them to her (she was extremely interested and attentive!) and then I put them on the table with her books so she could look at them when she wanted. She loves to 'read' them to herself over and over with lots of expression! This evening, I noticed that she had them in her baby stroller. They were the only things in there and she'd been walking them around the house, heehee!

Supper is generally the only meal that we all 3 sit down together for. Jordan and I usually hold hands while we thank God for our food before eating. In the last couple weeks or so, we've started to include Serena, and it has become one of her favorite things. After I get supper all ready, I put her in her highchair and then scoot her up to the table. She knows what's next, so she extends a hand to each of us, saying, "Mm, mm, mm" until we each take a hand. For about a week, it pleased her so much that she would laugh and laugh and we'd have to try to quiet her down before we could actually pray. Now, she just has a big smile and she usually stays quiet, though sometimes she has some things to say first (I don't know if she's pretending to pray or what)!

Serena is finally starting to get a little more cooperative with trying to say words. For a while there, she would either laugh when we tried to get her to say a new word, or she would just look away and pretend not to hear us. This was after she had already learned (with apparent pleasure) to say a few words like "book" and "up." I have no idea why she stopped trying to say new words, but I'm glad she's opening up to it again! If she seems like she's not going to try, we say the word and then say, "Your turn!" and then she'll give it a shot. So now she's saying "banana" ("na-na-na-na"), "baby ("bay-bay" or sometimes just "bay")," "ball ("ba")," "cheese" ("dee-dee" or sometimes [and I'm not sure why] "da-da"), "dog" ("day") and making attempts at other random words we come up with.

Music is still a huge part of our everyday lives. We have to have some playing pretty much all day long, whether at home or in the car. When we are at stores, if Serena hears some music, she'll start waving her arm and saying, "Uh, uh, uh" to me in very urgent tones until I acknowledge that I hear the music too. She did the same thing today when we were walking and a car drove by with the windows down and the radio blaring!

Last night, Serena was wearing a sweatshirt with pockets, so I put a toy cell phone in one of them. She thought it was the neatest thing! She tried putting it in and out, but it was kinda hard for her to do since the toy was kinda big. Anyway, she finally got it in and I told her to go show Daddy. You should have seen her strut over to Jordan and just walk on by him with her shoulders back and her belly sticking out! She thought she was something else with that cell phone in her pocket! She kinda juts her chin out and raises her eyebrows, but doesn't make eye contact. It's SO funny, because you can see how impressed she is with herself! "I have a cell phone in my pocket. I am big stuff!" Then, she pulled the cell phone out and proceeded to have a long, loud, and detailed conversation with whoever was on the other end! :D