Bella and Daddy

This is a typical Bella picture, with her flashing her big, easy smile. I love that about her. 

But in this picture of Bella she looks so grown up.  I wanted to post it, too.

Bella loves, loves, loves Dora right now. In fact for most of last week she was home sick, and let me just tell you, in those few days I saw/heard all the Dora episodes I care to hear. But anyway, we still endorse the madness: we call Bella "Dora, we call Becca "Boots" (Dora's sidekick), we buy Dora books and anything Dora in the Dollar bins at Michaels and Target, and I'm sure we will buy the Dora swimming mermaid for her for Christmas (I mean, does it get any better than Dora being a MERMAID!).  So one of the new Dora books we bought is about Dora returning all the friendship bracelets that Swiper stole.  And the first time we read this story, Bella pipes up, "I have a friendship bracelet that you got for me in Hawaii." I cannot believe that she remembered 1) that she has a bracelet, 2) that we bought it for her and 3) that it came from Hawaii.  Note to self - the kid remembers everything! Anyway, she was wearing that bracelet in this picture, but that you can see it. 

Beautiful Becca

Poor Becca. She was drooling like crazy in this picture, but I still wanted to post it because I thought it was a good picture of her. 

First Day of Mother's Day Out

Tuesday was the first day that Becca went to Bella's school.  She is only going part-time and only a few days a week. But she is already adjusting very well. She enjoys playing with the new toys and seeing new people. I bought her some new shoes for her first day (the outfit is a hand-me-down). For some reason Becca has a real shoe fetish. She sees her shoes, and she will start calling for them, "Shoes Shoes shoes." And if you give them to her, she will try to put them on. And don't even think about taking them away. Once she sees them, you'd better be ready to put them on her. And then of course the game for her is trying to take them off, as she is trying to do in this picture. I remember Bella playing this game, but not being quite so persistent. There are definitely great similarities in their personalities to mine and Todd's.  

Becca enters toddlerhood

Here is a short clip of Becca walking.

Walking, crawling, climbing

Well Baby Becca has done it again. She has started walking with no real assistance from anyone. She started walking last Wed night. She just decided to put three and four steps together to come over to were Bella and I were sitting on the floor. Then she did it again when we were outside playing at the water table. And then again when she wanted to play the piano. I have tried to get footage of it, but she is so unpredictable. Actually the thing is, she doesn't really like walking yet. But she will walk if the terrain is too rough. Last night we were at the city pool and they had a splash area. And Becca was walking in and out of the water all evening long. We finally left when I was afraid her little legs were on the verge of getting bloody from all the falling and getting up again. But once we got home, it was back to mostly crawling. But she'll be chasing after Bella soon.

Tonight she figured out how to climb down the stairs. I'd tried to teach her the same day she learned to climb up them, but it was frustrating her when I'd pull her down the stairs after she'd worked so hard to get up them. So tonight she figured it out on her own. But she is not as precise with her steps as her sister was, so I'm a little more hesitant with her. Eventually Becca got bored with just going up and down the two steps and headed towards the flight of stairs; however, I was preoccupied with Bella in the bathroom, so I yelled at her as sternly as I could. Becca stopped, looked around for where I was, and kept on going. As I am running out of the bathroom to grab her, I can her Bella saying, almost to herself, Becca's in big trouble.

Baby Becca

I've taught Becca to point to herself and say baby. I tried to capture that in this video. Of course they never do what they are supposed to once you get the camera. Becca has always been my baby. She's cuddly; she's whiny; she's dependent.  And she's growing up.  Yesterday when Bella woke up from her nap, I went upstairs to go get her. Instead of coming straight down, we had a meeting of all of Bella's bedtime buddies. We were deciding who to keep and who to send home (Bella's bed was being overrun with stuff animals).  We were laughing and having fun. Hearing the good times and realizing she wasn't apart of it, Becca decided to remedy that. So, she must have opened the gate, climbed the stairs, and crawled into Bella's room and over to her bed. I laughed at the site of seeing her just appear, but I assumed Todd had escorted her up. So when we come downstairs I asked Todd, "Did you bring Becca upstairs?" He says "No. I heard her up there. I assumed you came down to get her."  Mind you, she'd only climbed up the stairs earlier that day with me helping her.  Like I said, once she decides to do something, she just does it. And just this morning as I was getting everything ready for the morning, I put the bottles away. Becca officially takes her milk from the sippy. I felt like some kind of ceremony was in order. But there was no music ; no fanfare; no one to witness the last bottle going into a plastic Target bag (except me of course). Possibly the last bottle to grace the Dyer's countertops. What joy! What relief! And yes, what sadness. 

First Date

Bella went on her first date last night. She went to Dora LIVE with Popo. And because there was some confusion as to what "Pick her up at my house." meant, we did not have time to get any pictures. But they did make it to the show without a minute to spare. Bella had a great time, and even Popo was impressed with the production. When Popo walked Bella to the door, she yelled, "I'm home." Oh good. Did you have fun?  "YEA! I saw Big Dora and Big Boots. But Baby Jaguar was small." And when I asked Popo how she behaved he said, "She was perfect." Ok who believes that? But what do you expect to hear from a grandfather.