Annada Marie Vergo

(Annada has this habit of whispering when she thinks something is important. That’s why she whispers at the beginning – and when people she loves call her!)

I love you, Rona!

Marc liked the Children's Museum too. :)

Hiding in the pillows

Getting doggie kisses. Annada loved the doggies.

We went swimming every day.

When our plane started taking off, Annada desperately called for Rona. And Annada tells me that she misses Rona and her doggies every day.

Dinner with our cousins, Andrea, Cober and baby-boy.

I remember looking at Annada crying as an infant and longing for the day she could tell me what she wanted. That day has come! Between gestures and words, Annada has become very good at convincing pure strangers to give her candy, toys, pens… One day at Disney World two separate people gave her a brand new toy spontaneously after she smiled and said, “Hi!” to them. As for me and Marc… well, neither of us are very good at resisting her sweet little “pleeeease Mommy?”

I have a feeling the day is coming soon when Annada is talking like an adult. So I wanted to save a snap shot of where she is now. At 19-months Annada frequently says:

“bug, toy, hot, cold, wet, poop poo, pee pee, potty, undies, diaper, help, more, please, thank you, hot tea, milk, juice, apple, grapes, (ba)nanna, pepper, berries, yogurt, eggs, raisins, cookie, cracker, oatmeal, ice cream, miss, Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa (for both grandparents), Pepe, Meme, Erica, Rona, Kitties, doggie, bird, watch, happy, sad, miss, home, house, go, bounce, pool, book, puppets, draw, markers, nuts, up, down, hug, kiss, bye-bye, no, yes, Marc, phone, call, hi, here-you-go, all-done, watermelon, rainbow, yellow, wash, bath, water, uh-oh, one, two, guys, watch, Elmo, Dora, Buzz, baby, shoes, clothes, off, on, wake up, nap, nose, eyes, arms, feet, hands, boobies (thanks Erica), head, hair, hungry, drops, bib, swim, Jesus, amen, stop, help, naked and love.”

(I’m sure there are more – that is what comes to mind right now.)

Some of the phrases I hear every day are:
No nap, hungry hungry!
Uh-oh, poop poo. (Even if it’s not going to end up an accident, she doesn’t like the feeling.)
Pool please.
No! Miss, miss Daddy. (When he leaves for work.)
Miss _______ (Erica, Rona, Meme, Pepe, Grandpa(ma)). Go ______’s home.
Wake up Mommy! (In the morning when she gets up.)
Clothes off. Naked!

It was hard to get a picture of Annada sitting still :)

It was hot last week! It has been a fairly cool summer, but last week Annada and I had to hide inside. Annada was going stir crazy (and missing Daddy!) so I took her to Family Fun Time, an indoor bounce house place.

At first she was nervous and played with toys on the floor for about 30 minutes. But once she got going, she was a bounce-a-holic! I think the best part was this huge orange cat house. It was made for high bounces. Annada would lay down and I would bounce around her causing her to fly up in the air.

Just goofing off, I tried doing a split jump. Annada started laughing so hard, it took her almost a minute to catch her breath. That was it: for about the next half-hour I jumped into the splits and Annada rolled on the floor laughing. It was perfect, Annada was having fun and I got a work out.

Ever since then, about once a day, Annada has started jumping up and down then saying, “bounce, bounce, bounce… please?” She wants to go back

Where Quarters Come From

Once I couldn’t breathe from split jumps, I steered Annada toward a mini-arcade. There was a little car she could ride in that moved when you put in quarters.

I wanted to get quarters for a car but she was acting to strange about it. Like Mom – why?? When I finally pulled her over to the quarters she wouldn’t use mine.

“Ears, ears,” she said, trying to pull quarters out of her ears. In Annada’s world, that is where quarters belong!

I’ve nicknamed Annada “spider monkey” (she loves monkeys, so she likes this) because her arms and legs are so long! And she is climbing everything. Here she is watching her cookies bake. Thank goodness for oven locks!

I love how she jumps to get into my arms. Her legs and arms are long enough to wrap around and cling to me. She can, literally, climb up.

I made Annada “ants on a log” for lunch. I used love it when my mom made them for me. Annada was a little concerned by the word ant. But once she understood she picked off all the raisins, sucked up the peanut butter and gnawed on the celery.

Bedtime is a pretty awesome time. Annada is so sweet. Unbelievably sweet. As in ANYTHING that pushes back bedtime can happen. Long precious cuddles, saying “I love you,” a sudden interest in picking up her toys…

An we eat it up.

Tonight she cracked me up. We had just finished brushing her teeth and sitting on the potty for a very long time – we did every piece of a puzzle book twice and Annada was in no hurry to finish. When she was done I started to pick her up and Annada caught on that it was bedtime.

Me: Let’s go, Annada.
A: Daddy?
M: Daddy is working (out of town). We talked to him on the phone and you kissed him goodnight, remember? (I love my EVO – video phone calls are awesome.)
A: Phone? Daddy hi!
M: Nope. We are done.
Starting to pick her up.
A: Apple!
M: You just ate as much yogurt and blueberries as you can hold. It’s bedtime.
A: Wash. (As is wash hands)
M: Nope, you’re clean.
A: Bath!
M: You’re still clean (starting to laugh)
A: Hungry!
M: Silent
A: Drink!
Pause
A: Baby!
Pause
A: Cook!
Pause
A: Bubbles!
Pause
A: Eye drops.
M: Your eyes look fine (we put drops in when she got some dust in them once)
A: Ear drops.
M: Do your ears hurt?
A: Long pause… yes? Yes. Ear Drops. (With those famous head nods/eye brow moves)
M: Okay.
Pick her up and bringing her in her room.
A: No ears. Puppets.
M: Okay, you can pick out two puppets for your bedtime story. (The puppets interact with the story – Marc started it. He’s amazing.)
Read story then move toward the crib.
A: Poop poo. Apple. Hungry. HUNGRY! DRINK! BABY! PUPPETS!
Pause.
A: Hug. Momma, hug. Love, Mommy.
That worked 🙂

I know I’m biased – but wow… she’s adorable!

At the Lake Hart 4th of July party, we let Annada have half of a sugar cookie. I think she thought this was too good to be true, because she held it in both hands and shoved it directly into her face. She didn’t turn it first, so she sat in my lap for the next 10 minutes slowly sucking the cookie into her mouth and guarding it with both hands. This is the aftermath.

It’s always a good party if you get to leave with balloons!

Annada looks so grown up with her hair in a pony tail.

Annada suddenly has a sense of humor. She finds the craziest things funny. Some of them have us laughing for days. So here are a few of her recent jokes:

Marc, being a brilliant dad, likes to teach Annada opposities. So at night he touches her face and says smooth, then touches his and says scratchy. Annada follows along and says it too.

So a few days ago I was sitting with her as she was going potty. She reached out and touched my face and said, “smooth.” Then she got a big grin, reached under my arm pits and yelled, “scratchy!!”

Peering at me on the playground.

Aunt Erica is not fond of the flax seed Marc puts in our oatmeal. So she found it particularly funny when Annada reached into the bowl, pulled out a seed and proclaimed, “bug!” We all laughed so hard that Annada is still pulling things she doesn’t like out of her food, declaring them bugs and laughing hysterically.

Playing with Daddy in the mornings.

When I came home from Jazzercise, Annada walked into the room, pointed at me and starting exclaiming, “Ick! Ick! Ick!” Marc followed up with, “Please, listen to your daughter and take a shower.” 🙂

Annada's first day at kindermusik.

Annada likes to stick apricot pieces in my eye. Then she laughs so hard she falls over. (I don’t get it either.)

Annada likes to eat the tubes.

Chocolate at midnight :)

Aunt Erica has been gone for 4 days and Annada still wanders the house calling for her. Tonight as we got ready to see fireworks Annada got really excited. When it was time to go, she ran to the door, stuck her head out and yelled, “Err-ika!! Err-ika!!”

For some reason Annada thought Erica was coming with us and was disappointed when she didn’t show. We all love you Erica!

Aunt Erica and Annada play princess: that's Erica carrying the Princess' train

At around 4:30 today it dawned on me: Annada hadn’t missed all day!

We stopped setting a timer to make sure she goes too. Not that we aren’t spending a lot of time in the bathroom – Annada has frequent “ghost” poops. I think it is hard for her to tell when she is really ready to go. But the important things is: when she did need to go, she was in the right spot!

She didn’t go as often either. Which I think is good – she is learning to hold it a little. This is cause for major celebration here. We are on our way from official potty training and into fine tuning.

I’m wondering if she may go dry at night soon too. Last night she woke up at 1 a.m. crying. For some reason I thought from the sound she needed to go potty (is that crazy? Can she have a potty cry?). When I went in and picked her up, she asked to go potty.

We went to the bathroom, she leaned on me and… fell asleep. It took less than 60 seconds. I laughed and woke her back up. This time she peed and went back to bed no problem.

I feel like the miss today was my doing. It was around 6 p.m. and we had an hour to kill before bedtime. I’d really like her to learn to tell us when she needs to go (so we can go off potty alert). Being able to leave the house is the next step. So I put shorts on her and took her to the park. We’ve mostly been forgoing pants.

I think she thought she had a diaper on because she was shocked when she got wet. The poor girl walked home with her legs as wide as she could keep them and wanted even her shoes washed. I never want to punish her for missing, but I think she will probably work pretty hard not to repeat that. When we went back outside we were only out about 15 minutes when she asked to go in and use the potty.

I’m very proud of Annada. She has done so well – and all this time she has been mildly sick. I expect it to take a couple of months (or more) for her to be 100% confident, but I think she has the idea.

And so, I’m done keeping a daily log. I’ll update in about a week how its going. The toddler adventure has officially begun.
(Thanks for all the support mom!)

Day 7 Update: No misses!!! Way to go Annada.
Day 8: 3 misses. It’s all about #2.
Day 9: No misses!