Ginevra in May

Greetings Humble Readers...

I hope you are all doing well, and if you are of the US persuasion, I hope you are enjoying your long weekend. 

Yup... that's my milk.

Ginevra is 18 months old today.  A year and a half ago she arrived in our world and nothing has been the same since.  May has been a momentous month for our wee sweet girl, on so many fronts. 

Reading one of Mummy's books.

Of course the addition of Pippin to our little family has been a serious adjustment for Ginny.  Overall, I think she's handling it well.  She gets frustrated when I can't let her climb into my lap when I'm feeding Pippin, and she is fascinated with the bassinette that we have for the little mister.  She's learning to help... carrying empty bottles to Daddy, picking up things like receiving blankets and changing pads. 

Hamming it up for the camera, and carrying her favourite new thing... a pic of Pip.

Her vocabulary is growing constantly, thank heaven.  Ginny primarily babbles in her own language, but every day she adds something new to her repertoire.  Recent additions include shoes, alle-alle (a low German term for all gone), and go-go-go.  We've been working on the alphabet song, and she mimicks many of the letter sounds, just not in any semblance of order.  We're also working on counting... when I say 'one', she says 'twooo'.  She also likes 'fiiiiii' which in Ginny-speak means five.

Hangin' out with her cousin Oscar

Ginny has developed a particulary annoying habit of shrieking at the top of her lungs, in the highest key possible.  It almost makes my ears bleed.  She does it when she's happy, excited, upset, angry, frustrated... pretty much any emotion seems to call for it.  She started doing it around the end of last month, and it's getting on my nerves.  I have tried ignoring it, I've tried putting her in her crib when she does it.  Neither seem to have helped.  I'm just praying she outgrows this soon.

Watcha up to, Mummy?

Our wee sweet girl is also still teething the last of her one year molars, and we have no sign of her canines yet.  It seems to come in waves, she'll have a not-so good day, followed by a couple of really awful pain days, and then it will start to fade away, with no progress being made.  We went through this with her lower front teeth too.  Poor baby.

Not diggin' the swings today...

She's very active, as she should be.  She likes to try to put her foot up on the furniture (think like a ballerina doing bar excercises), including the top rail of her crib and the top of the play pen.  She's managed to crawl up on to the new couch, which is significantly higher than the old one, and she still gives me heart palpitations when she sits facing the wrong way.  I have visions of her falling backward onto the coffee table. 

... but she's lovin' the slide!

Ginny is becoming more aware of her own identity.  She has been able to identify Mummy and Daddy in pictures, and she loves pointing us out to each other.  She's also recently added 'Bay' for baby and uses that term for anything and everything that is related to him... the breast pump, bottles, wipes, blankets, the bassinette and the baby himself.  Just this weekend she began to understand that she is 'Ginny'.  When we ask her where Ginny is, she'll pound on her chest.  It's really cute. 

No Daddy, I don't want to wear my hat!

She also recognizes that Daddy and I wear glasses and that we look different when we don't have them on.  She knows something's missing.  The first time she actually watched me clean my glasses she got very freaked out about the whole thing. 

I love the camera!

Lastly, she's learning to share.  She tries to share her milk cup with me and her Daddy on a regular basis (which is hard to deal with, because I can't stand whole milk... blech!).  She's also tried to share it with Pippin, but that just resulted in a wail coming from the bassinette.  She and her little friend J at church have bonded over goldfish crackers (which Ginny tries to dunk in her milk cup through the straw). 

Ready for summer!

My girl is getting so big.  She's pushing 25 pounds now, and I have to pack up all of her super cute overalls and send them off to the consignment store because they're all miles too short.  Thank heaven for summer and not needing to wear long pants all the time.  Ginny's now rockin' the shorts and t-shirts most days.  And looking super cute in the process.