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.

A DELICATE TOUCH

Allegra's pretty good at using a napkin to wipe her face off. Though she's still somewhat oblivious to the train wreck of food clinging to her hands - at least to the extent that she cares to clean them off. She is however, aware enough that when she wants to get a drink, she uses only the palms of her hands, fingers extended outwards. That way she minimizes the amount of goop that gets all over her princess cup.

ARIEL

Of all the Disney Princesses, Ariel was the early favorite and continues to hold the top spot for Allegra. She loves watching 'The Little Mermaid' while holding her Ariel doll.

Kristen pointed out to me last night, that Allegra even does her own rendition of the fiery-haired princess. She mimics the scene where Ariel ascends through the water, belting out the "AHahaaaah" musical scales. Allegra will hold her doll, look upward, spin, and make a singsong imitation of the scene, and it's good enough that Kristen was able to tell what she was doing!

CHRISTMAS

A year ago Allegra was working on sitting up on her own, so Christmas was more a spectator's event for her. But this year she's mostly a sweet faced little terror. Totally ready to tear through some presents on Christmas morning!

Upon being given her first presents, she knew just what to do and got down to business. Of course the greed comes later in life, so she took her time. She'd open a gift, want it pryed out of its steel-like packaging, and begin playing with it. At the end of the day, she still has a couple unopened presents that she hadn't made her way to as of yet. But she did good, and it was fun to see her enjoy the event.

She received plenty of girly things - mostly in pink - and Kristen is thrilled to finally have some serious girl toys in the house. Of course her most favorite thing of the moment on Christmas morning, was her candy cane filled with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. She ate all of them!

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Allegra can point to her nose when we ask her where it is. (She's still working on the other facial features) But she's doing great at being able to understand us, and even communicate in return in some cases.
When we say, "you need to be changed" - be it a statement or a question - she actually goes and gets wipes and a diaper for us to change her! Now if she could just change herself we'd be in even better shape.