Airplanes -- Day 797

Well, I finally downloaded my recent pictures that include the Texas Grandparents' stay in DC. Anna had a great time while they were here, and visits to the Air and Space Museum and talk of airplane trips has transformed our little girl into an airplane.

It is really interesting to see Anna manage this new identity. She will correct us if we call her Anna and tell us seriously, "Airplane." She even catches herself messing up and will correct herself. Basically, she loves all things related to an airplane right now. This morning she went diving onto the floor. I think she was actually trying to take flight.

Also last week, Anna climbed out of her bed for the first time. (We weren't looking forward to this development.) I had heard a big thump upstairs, but didn't worry too much since it wasn't accompanied by crying. Then I thought I heard the stompy little steps of a toddler coming from above. I listened for them again, but didn't hear anything. Then I heard the top of her toy box crash to the floor. Something was up, so I marched up stairs and opened the door. She was just standing in the corner playing with her toys. When I asked her how she got out, all I could muster was, "Anna's an airplane." I guess she flew out of her bed.

Anna still loves singing too, but she only has one volume: really, really loud. And you should never ask her to sing BINGO in a public place. There simply is no soft version.

The new favorite song is Family of the Sun. This is some rather bad tune sung to Farmer in the Dell , and it used to be in an exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. I won't sing all the lyrics for you -- Anna can do that -- but the first verse gets a lot of play at home. It goes:

- Mercury is hot,
- Mercury is small,
- Mercury has no atmosphere,
- It's just a rocky ball.

Well, you simply cannot guess how many times Anna sings this during the day, and she has actually sung it so many times that she decided the consonants are just impeding her. So what we now hear is just a series of looped-together vowel sounds that come out something like:

- Uh-uh-uh-uh aaaaah,
- Eh-eh-eh-eh eeeeeeh, and so on.

Only the last words: hot, small, -sphere, and rocky ball can sort of be distinguished. But that is just the pronunciation issue, the real problem emerged when Pluto lost its status as a planet. The song included Pluto and reference to nine planets, so it was bound to go through some revision, and a few days ago when we went to the museum, the song machine was shut down. Anna just circled the TV monitors saying, "Where's family of the sun?" and "Where's the TVs?" It was sort of sad, but Dad is pretty good now at giving believable baby excuses.

When the Texas Grandparents were here, we also went to Mount Vernon. Anna ran around and we took quite a few pictures. The one at the top of this post is of Anna looking at a sheep at Mount Vernon. They had a lot of animals around the grounds and paths to run on. All in all, it was a great place to burn some toddler energy. Oh yeah, and we also saw some George Washington stuff too.

The photos are mostly of Anna at Mount Vernon and some from her pumpkin patch trip.