Practice makes perfect

Elizabeth's talking is really improving...she has a tremendous vocabulary and is learning new words daily. And, her words are becoming much more pronounced, requiring less interpretation than before. She's just like a parrot these days...she repeats everything we say. She also has started telling us everything she's done, sometimes ad nauseum. :) Here's a video sample of her telling me about a story she heard in the library when she went to storytime with Daddy....the sheep fell in the mud and got dirty....I wasn't there, but I've heard about it at least 100 times since! (Sorry the file is so large and the picture is distorted...I still haven't found a good way to share video on here!)



You'll also notice something very interesting at the end....she tells me that she went to Aunt Carolyn (Miller)'s house and saw her dog Blueberry, who was in his crate (not really, he was just in his room)....then she gets to the heart of the evening - she got to eat MARSHMALLOWS! No wonder she keeps asking to go back to Aunt Carolyn's house! :)

Of course, we quickly decided the marshmallows could be used to our advantage...we told her all day that when Victoria (her babysitter) came over last night, she would give Elizabeth marshmallows. We were hoping it would keep her from screaming as we left, and it really worked quite well. With a sweet tooth like that, she's definitely a Bridger girl!

We also bribed Elizabeth with something else last night...her NEW DUCK PAJAMAS!!! Several weeks ago, we had to throw out her favorite pair of pajamas, which had ducks all over them, because she wore holes through the toes of both feet. I told her we would get new duck pajamas, figuring I could pick them up anywhere. No doing - I couldn't find a single pair of duck pajamas in town. And, Elizabeth did not forget - she reminded us every evening that she was supposed to have "new ducks" and her "old ducks" had a "hole" in the "toe." I finally found some duck pajamas on eBay, and they came in the mail yesterday afternoon. Elizabeth was instantly in love, and wanted to take off her clothes and put them on as soon as she saw them. Here she is, trying to put them on herself:




Then, this morning, the first thing she told me when I got her out of bed was that she had her "new ducks" on, and they were "yellow" and "soft."



Of course, it was all cute, until she threw a fit when we had to take them off to get her dressed for church!

Her story of today is all about falling down when she was "outside" on the driveway yesterday. It was particularly exciting because she got a "boo-boo" on her "finger," which required a "Band-Aid." We've taken advantage of it to start teaching her the concepts of "left" and "right." She'll now tell us that her boo-boo is on her right hand, and her left hand is OK. And, for those of you who might be wondering, we're pretty sure she's going to be righthanded. She seems to favor her right hand for eating and coloring. Oh well....guess she can't be a mommy clone for everything!