BEDDY-BY

Allegra has always gone to bed easily, but more and more often she has been waking in the middle of the night. When this happens, she'll cry, and cry, and cry, until Kristen or I bring her down to our bed. Which of course ends in a horrible night's sleep for the both of us (our three bodies usually form a nice 'H'). So we took a gamble that maybe she'd sleep better if she had a 'big girl bed'.

So four nights ago, I removed the gate, effectively creating a bed for her. We had out doubts, mainly that she'd actually stay in the bed now that she'd be free to escape. But as luck would have it, she has been sleeping in her bed, through the night!

She doesn't leave her bed when I put her in there awake, she just kisses me, waves goodnight, and rolls over. It's AWESOME. Though she did wake up the second night when she heard Phoebe in the middle of the night. But she didn't come downstairs - she went into Tobin's room and climbed into bed with her big brother to sleep! Yup, pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Maybe I'm claiming success too early, but we're just so excited that she's been doing so well with this change. Knock on wood that it keeps up.

BOTIN

As Allegra's vocabulary expands - and she's saying everything (as you'll see in my next story...) - her pronunciation is getting better too. But she still makes-up her own words for some things that are apparently too complex for her to form yet.

She can say "momma" or "mom".
She can say "dada".
She can say "Blane".
She can say "eebee" (for Pheobe).
But she's not quite there yet on 'Tobin', which comes out - very clearly - as "Botin".

We hear a lot of "Botin! No! Botin, top it!", and so on. It's funny because it's so clear, and I didn't think 'Tobin' was tough to say. Well, whatever she wants, she's the Princess.

CRAP

Kids are sponges. It's a common enough fact, but when your little ones don't talk yet, it's easy to dismiss the idea. The crazy part for me has always been that point in time where they start to verbalize things, and you realize they've understood you for quite some time - what do they really know?! What have I said? Well, in this case, it's not me (I'm proud to say).

When things aren't all roses, Kristen's four-letter-word of choice, is 'crap'. It's pretty cute when she says it, actually - it's fast, emphasis on the '-ap' part, and almost a proper pronunciation of the word, 'crepe'. And since Allegra's yet to start preschool, she's around all the time, soaking up the experiences. Yup, you can see where this is going.

This evening, as I was doing some dishes, some water splashed to the floor. Allegra was nearby, and I heard a small, cute, "crrap". It wasn't exclamatory, but rather matter-of-fact. "Crrap." I couldn't help but laugh.

As I was carrying her around the house, on the way up to bed - she knew the final destination - she laid her head on my shoulder, and just kept muttering "crap", the entire time. I was giggling. It was just too funny.

Now we've the task of not laughing at it, and getting her to stop. Wish us luck...