9-Month Anna Picture

Here is a picture of Anna we had taken in Delft in The Netherlands. The photographer himself liked it and wanted it for his collection of "bloopers," which meant that he gave us the picture for free. As for most things in The Netherlands, the style is very clean and modern, hence the white background and bare skin. We got three pictures form him, and all were very nice and in a similar style.

In other Anna news, she can sing Ring Around the Rosie by herself. She misses a few words, but gets the main ones.

She also knows that when she throws things on the floor she can say, "Where it go?" After that she will sometimes say "nobod knows."

Lastly, she has caught on to her Daddy doing Sudoku and now calls them "Dadda nummers." When she notices that I am doing a puzzle, she has to get her Anna Pen (a pen without ink), and she "helps" me and tries to fill in some blanks.

I'm so Tired

This picture is from late 2004. We had to go to Amsterdam to get Anna a new passport, but in order to get to the Embassy early enough, we had to get Anna up pretty early. After we changed her, dressed her and put on her coat, she just fell asleep. Poor girl.

As for other Anna news, she gets really frustrated when I whistle. If I blow a couple of notes, she gets really annoyed and says, "No whistling." She also gets upset with Frances' hair around the house. I guess she is getting much more particular in general.

This morning she was chewing on one of her stuffed animals and bit off a piece of fake fur. I just caught her at the end when she was swallowing it, and I asked her what she was eating. She just looked at me and said, "Frances hair."

Ok...I guess.

I also bought some tights for her at Baby Gap and now she associates all socks and tights as coming from Baby Gap. So when I change her, she pulls off her socks and says, "Baby Gap." It is nice to know that commercial marketing won't have any effect on her.

Lastly, Anna has learned both of our names. She calls me, "in, Karring," because Kerry once said "umh, Karring." which has stuck to this day, and this afternoon she learned "Kerry" when I was talking on the phone with her. We both hope Mamma and Dadda are not on the way out.

Red Girl

This picture is from the Houston Zoo from Decem ber, and it was taken literally five minutes before she had a meltdown, tripped, and skinned her face. Poor Anna.

As for Anna news, she is really into music. She loves her Dan Zanes album. The music is really good and even appeals to parents -- a good thing. I am so glad the Barney "earworms" are not ruining our life. Apparently, Dan Zanes is pretty big now, and I can see why. Anna dances and knows the order of the songs, and she even sings along to small portions. 

Anna Talking

I have posted on Streamload a voice recording of Anna that we took using our Ipod. I am testing this to see how the quality is and whether there are any other problems.

For reference, Anna mentions paintings, which comes from letting her run around at the Freer Art Museum. There is an exhibition of paintings all showing women -- or as Anna says, "ladies." She also meows a lot since she is looking at a cat calendar while I am recording.

Anyhow, you may need to adjust the volume to a comfortable level since we are closer to the microphone than Anna. If it gets too close to her, she just grabs for it.

To access the sound file, just go to the links portion to the right, click on "shared videos", and play the "Anna talking" file.

Corn, Corn, Corn

This picture is from a while back, but I really like it. Anna loves corn on the cob.

As for her latest development update, she has learned the construction "I like..." and "I love..." and will pull out of nowhere statements like, "I love balloons," or even "I like boogies."

Of course, she will also use her, "I love Mamma," line which has its expected effect, but then again, she already won her dad over with her alphabet. When you ask her what letters she knows she says, "A-B-C-Daddy" instead of saying "D." This has effectively stopped me from trying to teach her any more letters.

Her numbes are getting good too. She can count 1 through 3, 7 through 12, and 14. Whenever there is a gap, she uses 2, 8, and 14 as fillers.

Today she learned the phrase, "Hurry up." I was heading to Barnes and Noble to use their free children's library, and kept telling her to "hurry up" so we could read Clifford, Olivia, and all of her favorites. She now has complete command of the phrase and an extra tool with which to boss Kerry and me around. It really is difficult to keep up with what she learns every day, but I am usually astounded at least one time a day.

Pumpkin Baby

This photo is from October, right before Halloween. I made a fort from a box and put a pumpkin in there for good measure. She really liked it.

As for more recent news, I take Anna to the Smithsonian Museums almost daily now. This week she has been to the Hirshorn, Freer, Amercian Indian, Natural History, and Air and Space Museums. The problem now is that she expects to go to the "indoor park" every day, but the good thing is that when I ask her about the indoor park she says things like "paintings." I guess not many children have the luxury of seeing great art every day. My motives, on the other hand, are to give her space to run around, and art museums in the morning are the most vacant publically heated places in DC. Of course, I am usually looking for a quick exit once she decides to touch paintings and crawl under display ropes. Today at the American Indian museum she learned to say Indians, but she says, "Indian-ins." She is pretty proud of this.

We also taught her to talk to Frances (our cat) in her language today. Now she looks at Frances and says, "meow, meow, meow, meow, meow" all in a sing-songy voice with different intonation and pauses. She really thinks she is talking to her.

Christmas 2005

Well, the family had a good Christmas. We went to Houston to Kerry's family for the holidays, which was very nice. There was good weather and plenty of loving family to shower attention on Anna.

We also took Anna to the Houston Zoo and met up with an old friend of Kerry's from her Texas days who also has a new baby. It was nice to see them interact. The photo to the right is of Anna at the zoo with her new wagon-buddy, Rachel.

Anna's vocab continues to expand. She can clearly say things like "happy birthday" and add a name to it and also has command of such phrases/words as "wrapping paper," "tupperware," "Anna room," Dadda books," and numerous other word combos. She can even now say her first and middle nmae "Anna Claire" when asked what her name is.

Lately, we have had to resort to basic discription to avoid her understanding what we are talking about. Cheerios are now "circles," string cheese is now just "sticks," and bananas are "yellow curves." I am sure she will catch on to this in no time at all.

Anna also got her first haircut. She screamed the whole time, and we had to cut her hair in the waiting area away from the scary chairs and people.