Ladybug

This kid cracks me up. She is nonstop energy and mischief. She’s wonderful, beautiful and absolutely exhausting.

Her favorite habit that drives me crazy is taking the dvds out of the player or their cases and hiding them, putting them back in the wrong case or cleaning them with a baby wipe (she’s also cleaned our new LCD tv with a baby wipe much to my irritation). I was surprised to learn that at age two, she already knows how to work the dvd player already. I put in a movie for her yesterday and came back after ten minutes to find a different movie playing.

When she sneaks down the hall after she’s been put to bed, she comes to my door and whispers “psst hey. Psst hey. Hey guys, psst hey.”

Today our home teachers came for a visit. Being her typical self, she was showing off saying “hey guys, look at me!” and then twirling in circles until she fell down. The best part is her “shifty eye” expression (thus the nickname “shifty eye baby”). She holds her head perfectly still as she turns in circles with her arms held out stiffly. But her eyes are pushed the opposite direction of her twirling, looking over as far as they can without having to turn her head. It’s very awkward and adorable. She also does this shifty eye expression when she’s been asked to do something that she doesn’t want to do. She will slowly turn her head away from me but with her eyes pushed the opposite direction.

Her favorite toy is her “bebug”. It’s a stuffed animal ladybug with crazy hair and she insists on having it to go to sleep (in addition to “yellow” and “panda”). But lately, she seems to have made it part of the bedtime routine that we have to search for the bebug first. She lets me put her to bed without it, and then sneaks out of her room using the excuse of needing her bebug. So I go searching. Most nights, I look for 15-20 minutes without finding it and have one or two failed attempts at putting her to bed with a replacement animal. Then just as I’m getting really frustrated, she suddenly appears with the bebug despite my having searched the entire house and every hiding spot I can think of. Obviously she has a favorite spot that I haven’t found yet and is using it against me.