Anikdotes

Anika will be 2 next week! Since Baby Brother isn't here yet I'll go ahead and catch up now.

(Sometimes I think he is holding out so he can share a birthday with her on the 14th.

If he doesn't come by Tuesday, I think I'd just as well have him wait.)

I should have posted half of this a couple of months ago, but better late than never so I don't forget. I've been jotting notes about cute/funny things she has been doing, but I need to write it out and add some pictures.

Anika has been doing some pretend play. She will sometimes make lunch or go to work.

She will come tell me, "I need a hug... and a kiss. I'm going to work." She brought me her coat,

I helped her put it on and then she headed for the back door (Nathaniel goes out the back

because he rides his bike) as she told me, "See ya. I'm going to work."

She has also been mothering her dolls a lot. She takes them on walks (around the table), feeds them,

puts them down for naps, wakes them up, takes them to work, reads books and sings to them,

dances with them, puts diapers and bibs on them. They mostly just nap though. Anika will tell me that, "She's tired. She needs a nap." and runs to get a blanket or dish towel and put her doll down.

Often it is just a few moments until, "She's awake!"

Here is a doll, bear and monkey taking a nap.

Some of the first songs she sang were:

Rock-a-bye Baby - "Rock a baaby. Rock a baaby."

Row Row Row Your Boat - basically the title over and over (maybe forgetting one "row")

If You're Happy and You Know It - I don't remember how she sang it, but she would clap too. One time I finally figured out that she was saying, "Shout Hooray" as she raised her arms into the air.

Some of the first stories we would hear her talking about were:

The Three Little Pigs - "Wolf knock a door." "Puff, puff and blow house down."

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - "A big fat capillar." "The egg POP."

Goodnight Gorilla - there is a page where all the animals say goodnight. Nathaniel and I will

both often read each "goodnight" with a different sound. It is funny to hear Anika saying "goodnight"

over and over but some with a high pitch and others a low grumble. She also talked a lot

about the animals getting out of their cages.

Little Black Sambo - "Black Sambo sad."

I am a Child of God was one of her first favorite songs to request. She would ask us to sing it all the time. There were plenty of nights that I sang that song for all of her bedtime songs. One Sunday in church the congregation started singing the opening hymn. Anika noticed the singing, was quiet for a minute, and then she got upset and asked for "I am a Child of God." She finally agreed that we could sing it later.

Now she sings and "reads" books all the time. We can't get enough of it.

"Having ever seen a snake BAKING a cake..."

"Roll it and roll it. Mark a B. Tossss for baby Emmy."

I especially love to hear her read Hop on Pop, Froggy gets Dressed

("Frooogy, you a got your underwear."), You Are Special, Two to Cuddle...

Books are always being transported throughout the house. She also likes to get a big stack and then go through each one. At the library she got book after book off the shelf (I kept trying to stop her

but it was no use), but finally she sat down and looked through every one.

I picked her up after a neighbor watched her during an appointment and I noticed that half of their books were off the shelf and in a pile on the couch. It had "Anika" written all over it.

One day she was running back and forth between her room and mine. She brought in about 20 books,

ne at a time, and said the title of each book as she dropped it into a big pile on the floor.

Getting "wrapped up" is one of her favorite things. She asks us to "Wrap my up"

all the time and wants help wrapping her dolls and animals.

She had a very enjoyable phase where she called everyone and everything a "Silly Goose."

Anika often asks to "help" and "see" while we are cooking or doing similar activities. For awhile she was on the counter or a chair next to me just about everyday while I made our lunch.

She likes to cover her eyes and wander around as she steps on things and crashes

into the bed, closet or wall.

In this picture, Anika put on a hat and is sitting where she can see herself in our big mirror.

She knows much better now, but apparently Tom Brokaw and a few members of MOTAB are also grandpa.

We have a few currant bushes. One of them is a black currant bush. She ate them like candy! No kidding.

he would often take our hand (or the hand of anyone that was over), try to lead us to the back door

hile asking for "gapes." Our grapes were still ripening at the time, but thankfully she could

ave some of those as the black currants were dwindling.

She likes to say, "What's that noise?" A few of her books have a similar phrase. Sometimes she will use her finger to make a tapping noise on her teeth and will then say, "What's that noise?"

Trying to hold a book up with her legs.

Pretending to nap with her monkey.

Anika is wearing Baby Brother's blanket sleeper bag thing. The bear is wearing Anika's onesie,

and she is trying to put a diaper on him too. My mom got her some doll diapers for Christmas.

They were a hit and we don't have her diapers all around the house anymore.

We've only been swimming a couple times since summer, but she still loves it! We went a few weeks ago and she continues to talk about it. "I went swimming!" We've been mini golfing a couple times in the last few months too. She often reminds us, "I went golfing a Conner (a neighbor boy we went with)."

We also made it to Temple Square. She enjoyed the lights and cried when we left the shepherds.

Ever since she has been talking about the "Big temple." (I had explained to her that temples were bigger than churches.) She often asks to go see the "Big temple."

Anika had her first haircut. I don't have pictures, but it was Friday, December 2nd, 2011

if she ever wants to know. She did surprisingly well.

She loved trick-or-treating and got the hang of it pretty quickly. We used her candy

(what we didn't eat) mostly for potty-training treats. She didn't know to call it candy,

but would ask for a "trick-or-treat" after using the potty.

She loves to vacuum. It took awhile, but I have finally convinced her to let me have a turn first.

It is pretty amusing to watch such a little girl push a big vacuum around. I will hold the cord as she does it, and I noticed her holding the cord for me the last time I vacuumed.

I have been doing pregnancy exercise videos lately. Anika will often join me for a minute here or there. Mostly she just marches forward and then back. She also crawls under my legs, sits on my lap, lays under me when I'm on hands and knees, and climbs all over me if I am laying down.

I think I was feeling pretty tired/pregnant this day, but she turned on the TV, switched the channel to The Price is Right, unzipped her jammies down to her belly button and sat there and stuffed glue gun sticks and buttons down her jammies for quite some time. I figured it couldn't be too harmful and enjoyed the break.

One day she made her bear's hand hit something and then went and put him in time out.

One of her animals has a flap in the back that covers the place for batteries. I heard her say "check" and she pulled it open and said "nope" and closed it again as though she checked his diaper.

I woke up from a little nap and wondered if Anika was awake (or if she had ever fallen asleep). I went to the bathroom and when I flushed the toilet I heard my answer from the other room, "Yay, Mommy went potty!"