Signs Part II

(note from Mommy Laura instead of Anya):
Anya has been quite cute with the signing lately. Here are a few examples:

baby: also see "cat"

flower: flowers make noises. The sign for flower is to move the hand, fingers together, from one side of the nose to the other. During this process, Anya's hand takes a temporary detour to "slide" across her lips to add a little harmony.

potty: this has always taken a life of it's own in the evening when it's time for bed as that seems to be when Anya wants to poop. Over the past week or so, after cleaning the potty, Anya takes it from the bathroom and places it back in it's place on the shelf at the end of the bed.

We have gotten in the habit of reading books during potty time. Anya loves to read books both on and off the potty. As we go to bed, she's often lying there and (probably) half tired but then realizes she has to go potty. So lately she waves her arm around doing the potty sign. For the first 2 times she actually does go potty (#1, #2). I can appreciate someone wanting to relieve them self before bed. But then the past 2 nights we have gone to bed a 3rd, and 4th time and Anya still says she has to go "potty" but it's really because she wants to read books (at least this is what I think). So last night was so funny. It was about 10:30 (usual bed time is around 9) and we were on "potty take 4" (potty 1 and 2 were actually potty times). I thought "ummm, maybe I'll just lay here and pretend I'm asleep and she'll just forget about the potty" Nope. This is what happened(I'm playing dead this whole time but peeking out of the corner of my eye):
-signed "potty"
-signed "potty again"
-crawled to the end of the bed (where the potty lives on the shelf)
-take potty off the shelf
-signed "potty"
-moved "potty" to the middle of the bed
-proceeded to sit successfully on the potty with diaper on
-signed "potty"
-pointed to a book
After this, I hid the potty and the books so hopefully that will work until she outsmarts me again.

Signs!

Over the past week especially, my ability to sign words is amazing! I can now sign duck and bird (one and the same), monkey, telephone, dog, cat, nurse, and potty! (n.b. as many of you know, Anya's been sitting on the potty since she was 8 months old so this last one has taken a l-o-n-g time).


This is me looking at a "cat" photograph compliments of Aunt Tessa

Sweet teeth

With all this snow, we've been finding ourselves foraging for some comfort food. This has primarily involved trips to get hot chocolate (and coffee for Daddy Pat) and having Grandma and Grandpa's maple syrup on waffles and French toast.

Go Hillary!

We were excited to see that Hillary won Ohio! And hope that Grandma McDonald did well in her role as "Chief Justice" as she was in charge of the voting procedures for her precinct (Munson D). And we also hope that Grandma and Grandpa Wagner voted correctly this time around!

In other news:
Thanks to my friend Saki and her family for babysitting me last weekend! I had such a great time