Oden Adventures

January 8, 2015, means that little V is now two-and-three-quarters years old!  Which means a lot nearer to three than two (in every realm) these days.  She continues to be the hilarious handful that we know and love, with a heart of gold and a smile that often gets her out of trouble.  She loves Spiderman and Strawberry Shortcake, The Avengers and Doc McStuffins, playing video games with Daddy and Elmo games on the computer (she can wield a mouse like no one's business!), spinning in princess fairy outfits and kicking the soccer ball around the backyard, making her brother smile, doing puzzles and playing with all the new toys she got for Christmas, "special treats" at the red tables at Costco, real and imaginary trips to Oregon, weekday adventures with Grandpa and weekend visits with all the Odens.  Recent favorites also include watching the song scenes from Sound of Music and Mary Poppins and playing with the Connect Four, Yahtzee, and Rummikub pieces.

She still has a language all her own (a ha dee doo and a fa lee la) but also has a whole bunch of her own hilarious English expressions.  She likes to tell me, "Mama, you're not acturating me!" and whenever she gets in trouble with a talking-to, she usually comes back with something akin to, "I can't and you can't" (the pronouns used often change) and I really have no idea what either of these mean. I suspect acturating is something like her attempt to use "frustrating" or "irritating" because it's usually said in a sort of annoyed tone, and the latter is said sort-of scolding.  She has started using "actually" recently, usually correctly, which always cracks me up coming from the mouths of babes.  And whenever she hears someone speaking a language other than English, she says, "They're speaking French like you!"

She's starting to do really big girl things like put on & pick out her own clothes and get her own snacks & cups of water.  She's tall enough to turn on light switches now - about 38 3/4" and about 33 lbs.  She's also a pro at going on the potty...but only #1, and only when Mama suggests it, so far (we'll file potty training under Things That Don't Go Quite As Expected - along with most of my life).