This morning, Vivi finally said "neigh neigh" when I asked her what a horse says. For a long time, she's responded to that question with the same "baa baa" sound she uses to answer the sheep question. With this addition, she now does funny little sounds for cats (a piercing shriek), dogs (a low "ruf ruf"), cows ("oooooooo"), horses, sheep, and - best of all - snakes ("sss sss"). She does a mean Cookie Monster, too. No, really, he sounds mean: a two-pack-a-day growl.
Not to be outdone, Julia today, for the first time ever, on her 1,374th day of life, got out of bed on her own. The morning bustle has lately become more problematic, since now that Vivi is morning-weaned, she has to get to eatin' right away - and of course Julia usually wakes up right then. True, there are two adults to handle the commotion, but it'd be nice if Shannon could sleep in on weekends and not have to do kid stuff while I'm home on weekday mornings.
Anyhow, last night Shannon and I told Julia that she could, on waking up in the morning (and if she could see light outside!), get herself out of bed. Again - she's never done this before: she hasn't even so much as thrown her covers off without us being in the room. The kid who sneaks out of bed at night to play with dolls? Or out of the room to see what mom and dad are up to? Not our daughter.
But this morning, at 6:24 a.m., who should come dancing up to our bed, whispering, "Hi, hi, hi!" but our girl. After visiting with us for a few minutes, she went back to her room to put on morning clothes and make her bed. She was, I think, slightly amazed at her newfound ability to get up independently. I hope she uses this power for good!