Twenty months

Can you believe Britt's almost two years old already? Me, neither.

She loooooves books. We read lots of books together every day and, when we're not reading, she stacks them up and carries them from room to room. Her new thing is to sit on the floor and throw all her books up onto the couch, one at a time. Then she'll climb up on the couch and throw them down on the floor one at a time. And then she'll do it all over again. And again. And again. They're getting a bit worn, as you can imagine.

Sometimes she'll go off to her room and get real quiet and, when I go check on her, she'll be sitting on the floor with books piled around her, paging through them and moving them from one stack to another.

She also loves mud. I got off easy all winter because of the drought, but now that it's raining gullywashers every other day she winds up a muddy mess every time we go outside. It's ruined several outfits, too, in spite of all the Shout-ing and Spray 'N Wash-ing I do. Even her bluejeans are stained orange from that damned red clay soil.

The garden gate isn't the only thing she's learned how to open. I thought I was going crazy, or my dishwasher was, because I'd start unloading it and realize that the dishes were still dirty. And sometimes there would still be soap in the soap thingy. And when I'd shut the door to re-run them it would start running mid-cycle, so I'd be trying to remember if I'd opened the door for some reason and didn't shut it all the way. This went on for about two weeks before I saw Britt walk up while it was running and squeeze the handle until it quit. It took me four tries to get that load done.

It is imperative that she monitor all my showers by running back and forth along the tub, throwing out the shower curtain behind her so that water goes everywhere, especially all over her. It's either that or shut the bathroom door and listen to her howl with rage on the other side.

"Watsat" is her favorite new word, accompanied by pointing at anything and everything. It goes something like this:

Watsat?

That's the dog's food.

Watsat?

That's the dog's water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

How 'bout ice cream, Sis? You want some ice cream?