TWENTY-EIGHT

Allegra has locked-on to the number 28. We have no worldly idea why. At first, we thought she just said it all the time. Then we recognized a pattern - she associates it with night time. So whenever she realizes it has become dark outside, we'll hear "Huuu! Mommy, 28!!!" and a little finger points out the window into the darkness.

ARGH MATEY!

We're sitting in bed, Allegra between us. She pointed at Kristen's chest and asked, "S'that?"
Kristen said, "That's mommy's chest."
Allegra, cocked her head, scrunched her nose, and asked, "Pirates?"
It took Kristen a moment, before she realized, Allegra thought she was calling it a Pirate's treasure chest. How cute is that?!

NOT

Kristen: "Allegra, do you want to take a bath or not?"
Allegra: "A not."

MOMMY DAUGHTER SHOPPING TRIP

As told by Kristen:

So After I dropped Tobin off for afternoon kindergarten today, Allegra and I went to do some shopping at Kohls. They were having awesome sales and this darling little outfit and jacket were down from $45 to $16. They had one left in her size and I loved it! It had a fuzzy coat over it with a large collar, ribbon waist and big crystal buttons.

I tried it on her, much to her dismay, and she told me it was too big. I persisted though and carried it around the store because I wanted this coat. After a little while I asked her again if she liked it. She told me, "No." I said, "Don't you like the sparkly buttons?" "No!"

A few minutes later I'm struggling with myself as to whether or not to buy this adorable coat. I asked her, "Allegra should I buys this or not?" "No!" "Allegra, will you wear this if I buy it? Because if you're not going to wear it, I'm not going to buy it." Yes, she's two and a half and she's that opinionated about her clothing already. Her response to my final question, "No mommy, I not!" I didn't buy the coat.

WHO'S THE BOSS?

Even before Allegra was stringing words together, she was communicating with her hands. And when I say 'communicating', I mean 'bossing'. Now that the words are coming easier, there is an awful lot of direction being given - not only to older brothers, but to mommy and daddy too.

BED BUDDY 'BOBIN'

Allegra's always been a good sleeper for us. Bedtimes were easy, in that we could lay her down in her crib once she was ready (10ish) and she would go quietly and take care of the rest. But lately she's wanting to stay up later with us, before going to bed willingly. We of course, want some evening time with kids in bed, so have tried to get her down between 9:30 and 10pm - usually to heinous results. The Princess does not wish to be asleep so early!

Last night around 10, I decided to try taking her up to her crib. She saw the look on my face from across the room, and burrowed deep into my covers, hands waving me off, shouting, "noo noo noo!" She's a smart one. Suddenly my best friend for most of the day wanted to be in Mommy's arms. So Kristen took her up, much to Allegra's dismay. Now, I'm the one who puts Peetie to bed - she goes for me, but rarely for Kristen, so I fully expected disastrous results.

Kristen was upstairs for a few minutes - I figured, doing a little extra rocking to ease the hand-off - and then reappeared. Miracle of miracles, there had been no [audible] gnashing of teeth! But then Kristen explained,
"It was SO cute honey! She didn't want to be in her crib, and started gesturing to Tobin's room, saying 'Bobin, Bobin!' So I took her in there. She crawled over his sleeping body, pulled his sheet over her, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and shut her eyes tightly. She's been laying in there for almost 5 minutes without moving. You need to take a look."

So I went up a few minutes later. Sure enough, there she was. She hadn't budged, but her eyes were open as I squinted through the darkness to see. I tiptoed out and left them in there. I went back a few minutes later to see how it was going. From the door, I could see her gently stroking Tobin's arm (as she does to us when she gets tired), and quietly talking in her half gibberish, half english style. I tried moving her to her crib, but you would have thought I was trying to destroy her with the fit she let out. So I relented as she motioned and sobbed, "Bobin. Bobin."

Later in the night - before I turned in - I moved her passed out little body to her crib to sleep the rest of the night.

I woke at 6 this morning to her crying from her room. I went to get her. Typically she is thrilled to see me in the mornings, and gives me a full body hug, but not today. Today she pointed (again) for Tobin's room, and cried, "Bobin!" as I took her down to go back to sleep in our bed for another couple of hours. She calmed down and accepted our bed as a decent second option.

The whole thing was so adorable. I'm sure Tobin would be fine with his baby sister sleeping with him every night, but he's a thrasher, that ons is. Wouldn't be safe for her. But we're wondering if maybe this is Allegra's way of telling us she's ready for her crib to be converted into a bed. She's able to climb out of her crib - has been for months - but chooses not to (unlike her brothers before her). So maybe we'll try the bed option, and see how she does sleeping in her little princess bed. Either that, or Tobin's about to get a bed buddy!

BLUE

Lately, everything is blue. And I'm not just talking about color, but rather every thing is 'blue' as far as Allegra is concerned.

She points at something - "Bleeew!"
"No Peetie, that's the refrigerator."

"Bleew! Bleew! Bleew!"
"Yes Allegra, the fan is going around and around and around."

However, there are the random lucky moments when she does actually point at something that is indeed blue. It's these moments when we get far more excited than we should about the blue stain she's pointing out.

DISCONTENT

Allegra doesn't say much just yet. There are a few utterances that could be called words, and given the situation, we're pretty sure about what she's trying to say. But the 'words' still come out as sort of whispered mumbles - like when you don't know someone's name and you kind of trail off to mask the fact that you don't know what it is. Anyway.

The words she's had down pat for a while now (no surprise) are "mama" and "dada". But lately she's put a twist on them, so that we know, that she's not happy with us.

For instance, if Kristen tells her she needs to stop banging the [wood] dinner table with her fork, she'll get her growling face look, and tersely exclaim, "Ma maAAA!!"

If I have to get after my princess (yes, it pains me) for poking at or pulling on the dog, it's with a stern voice, letting her know that it's not ok. She replied in kind, with "Da daAAA!!"

Following any of these scenarios, she holds the growl-face pretty much until we start laughing at her. At which time she cocks her head to her shoulder with a little 'I'm so cute and you can't be angry with me' smile. Does anyone else see issue with this??

UH-OH!

Allegra [still] doesn't say much of anything. It's all "mama", "dada" and motioning with her hands. But she does say "Uh-oh!" very clearly. Most often when her show is over on the TV, or she presses a button on the remote that messes up the viewing. "Uh-oh!"

"THANK YOU"

I gave Allegra some food the other day, and told her, "Ok, say 'Thank you'."
She responded, "Tank ooo"

She just said like, real words! Needless to say, Kristen and I were pretty excited over the ordeal. We've just assumed she'll never speak, because she's got the hand signals down so well. Maybe there's hope yet.

TALK TO THE HAND

Allegra has developed her very own special way of telling us to backoff. She raises her hand and holds it there, as in, "STOP!" I realize this is fairly universal as far as gestures go, the odd part however, is that we don't make this motion around our house. So where she came up with it is completely beyond us. But when she's in a mood, we know absolutely that she doesn't want us messing with her, when she raises that hand and stares us down.

WORDY

For a while now, Allegra has been saying "mama" and "dada". But the rest of her communications have been with her hands, head, and actions. But these days she's starting to use some more words and it's getting really fun.

Her favorite seems to be "uh oh", but we have also begun to hear the dreaded "un uh". Just for the record, I'm not looking forward to my little girl saying 'no'. We also get the call for her "bruts", or something that sounds like that, and which we only know is 'brothers', because she is pointing at them. Her last regular word is "ulk", and is usually followed by her bringing us a sippy cup to put it in when she's hungry.

It's getting fun to hear her actually using words we understand - not that anyone else can understand most of them, but that's not the point!

OUR SAVIOR

Today at church, Kristen asked Allegra who it was in the painting on the wall. Allegra replied in her developing english, "Jeja" Which obviously is Jesus. It's exciting to have her beginning to recognize things, and especially something as important as our Savior.

DADADADADA!

Some of the first noises Allegra made consistently sounded just like, "DADADADADADA!" It probably didn't mean anything in particular, but I'll be believing that she was yelling for me (at me?) all those times.

OUR LITTLE WOOKIE

Allegra's figuring out her voice, and makes plenty of noise. Her latest noise can most closely be likened to that of a Wookie (from Star Wars - need I explain that?!)

She's got this gargle from the throat noise that she does in different pitches, and it's so funny to listen to her go on and on with it. I'll take that over a shrill girly scream any day.