Happy Fourth of July!

Rosemary and her parents had a great fourth of July, starting with the Air Force National Guard band concert in the park and Rosemary's first ice cream cone (note her holiday appropriate dress, Summer). She was entranced by the brass band and after every song, when the (long-winded) conductor introduce the new piece, she furiously made the sign for "more" and demanded "more ninis" (which, mysteriously, is her word for "music" -- she also demands "more ninis" after every CD track in the car). Rosemary is also getting a lot more adventurous with slides (we pretty much go to the playground every day now to tire her out) and stairs, which is a good thing but also a bit scary.

We also had a GREAT time at Lake Arrowhead with friends, and Rosemary took her first kayak ride. Guess we were too busy preventing her from falling in the lake to take pictures, but it was a great, relaxing weekend. We've spent some good time with Beatrice too, who is getting cuter and cuter. Went to an evening concert in Descanso with her (more "ninis"!), where Beatrice clearly appreciated the jazz. And Rosemary didn't even seem to mind that I held Beatrice a significant chunk of the time -- this is great training for her.

Rosemary is learning lots of new words, our favorites being "flashlight" (from the book "Corduroy" where the night watchman has a flashlight), "funny" (she first started saying "dada funny" because she thinks he's funny -- see below, even though I'm forcing her to say it), "happy" (which is also what she calls her friend "Abby" form playgroup), "bubbles" (which she is really demanding about -- she can't quite do them herself so she insists that you do them for her over and over), "la la la" (when she wants you to sing a song), and, newly "Yayos" (Cheerios). I used to know all the words that she knew, but now she'll start saying things that I am not sure what she's trying to say, and then finally realize its a new word that I didn't even teach her. I think she pretty much has all the animal sounds (and names, although often animal sounds act as their names) down, including the sound an elephant and a brontosaurus makes (do you know what sound a brontosaurus makes?), as well as most fruits.

All in all, the language development is extremely interesting, although a somewhat mixed blessing since about 75% of the time, she uses her language to make explicit (and specific) demands. But hey, it must be exciting for her! And she's a pretty good baby most of the time -- James has been away in New York this weekend, which means that I'm more tired than usual. Yesterday when she got up around 7, I went in her room to get her, but she simply demanded "more books," which I gave her, and then she sat in her room reading to herself for another 30 minute or so. Good baby.

Today I took her to the Caltech campus, which is better than any playground as far as we're concerned because it is FULL of turtles, which she had mixed emotions about. At first they FREAKED her out (because they come out of the water to "eat Yayos") and made her cry, but then she cried when we left the "baby turtoos" because she apparently kind of liked them too. We also enjoyed dipping our feet in the fountain (not the ones with turtles in them).