millie-isms: part III

THIS GIRL.

She is just beyond hilarious to me these days. Her language development and opinions?? TOO MUCH. I never want to forget this stuff.

1. She is a lover of all plants, animals, and nature...except bugs. And bees. When she's outside (which is 100% of the time if she has it her way), she likes to inspect every flower, touch every tree, and pet every animal. When she sees spent flower petals on the grass, she frantically cries "OH NO!!!" and picks them up and tries to replace them on the flower/tree they fell from. 

But when she sees any type of bug...or a speck of dirt or bark that vaguely resembles a bug...she sneers her nose and yells "WAY, BUG!!" while frantically waving her arms...go away, bug. If the bug doesn't immediately obey, she summons the nearest parent to go take care of the situation for her. "Mama!!! Bug!! Way!!"

Kitty cats do not need to "way." 

2. She loves her grandparents almost as much as flowers and animals, and possibly even more than her mommy and daddy. 

I know this because when my parents were here last weekend, my mom and I were giving Millie a bath. And after a few minutes of noticing that both Mommy AND Nannie were in the bathroom with her, she narrowed her eyes at me and decisively said "Mama. WAY."

And then she shooed me.

And I said "what?? Mills, you want Mommy to go away? You want Nannie to give you your bath?"

She nods.

"Mama. Way. Bye-bye."

Okay then. (P.S. I don't think my mom was nearly as broken up over this turn of events as I was. Ha!)

3. We had a birthday celebration for my dad while he was here, and we've had a little "Happy Birthday" sign thingy and the leftover party blowers sitting in our dining room ever since. Ever since then, approximately 3,928 times per meal, Millie will suddenly exclaim "Happy, happy!!" and make this big smile and move her head from side to side (which generally means she is "singing"). If Matt and I don't immediately begin singing the Happy Birthday song, she will yell "HAPPY!! HAPPY!!!" even more frantically while signing "more"...so we better snap to and start singing!

Happy girl.

4. I started rubbing Millie's back when I lay her down to sleep recently, and she immediately decided it was an integral part of her evening (or nap) routine. As soon as we finish saying our prayers, she says "back? back?" until I promise that I'll rub her back when she lays down. I rub it for a minute, and then she's calm and/or asleep, and I leave her room. If she happens to wake up in the middle of the night (once every week or 2), she will now accept a rubbed back in lieu of being held and/or insisting on sleeping in Mommy & Daddy's bed. So it's pretty nice.

But the other night, she was not tired (or way too tired) and just couldn't settle down at bedtime. I rubbed her back, she'd lay quietly for 2 minutes and then pop up and start screaming...I'd return and rub her back again, she'd repeat the whole thing again. We did a few rotations of this, and then I told her that this was the last time and that Mama wasn't going to come back in until she was asleep. I stuck to my word, but I was watching her on the video monitor as she stood in her crib yelling for me. After a few minutes of fruitless yelling, she laid back down...and then contorted her little arms backwards and attempted to rub her own back. YALLLLLLL. It was the sweetest, saddest thing I've ever seen. Poor Millsie, rubbing her own back. 

Luckily for her, it worked and she finally fell asleep. HA!

5. She can do three "chores" that are actually semi-helpful now! She unloads the silverware from the dishwasher, she feeds Lola (and screams "EAT EAT, NONAH!! EAT EAT, NONAH!!!" until the terrified dog finally gives in), and she can sort diaper laundry! She can separate the liners from the covers, which means all Matt and I have to do is stack the liners/covers before we put them away. I showed her how to do it a week or two ago, but a few nights ago I was surprised to find her doing it all by herself (without me asking/showing), AND she was stacking up the liners! 

Child labor for the win!

I think maybe she just really likes sorting things in general right now, because she also loves sorting all of her play dishes/silverware (putting all of the red ones together, the blue together, etc.) and also sorting her farm animals. It's precious.

But the cows cannot be sorted until she kisses their "boo boos"...aka udders. Ha. I told her that that is where the milk comes from, and she looked at me very seriously and then shook her head and said "BOO BOO" as she kissed it. So now I know.