Spring, Spring, Spring!

To quote A Home For a Bunny, "Spring, Spring, Spring!" It's arrived early, and we're soaking up the sun, smelling the flowers, and playing outside together. Watching Max pull Sunny in her tiny old wagon (thanks, Popo!) melted my heart.

Chia-kitty still mothers Sunny as much as she can, and during baths, the cat will often perch on the side of the tub, impervious to splashing and shrieking, just to stay near her baby. Sunny-kitty has really taken a shine to the baby, though she still won't allow petting. The other day, Sunny baby was sitting on the kitchen floor crying. I had to take the trash out. I was back a half minute later, but Sunny baby had stopped fussing and was about to shove a fuzzy octopus into her mouth, with the cat sitting beside her, looking on. This octopus toy is our cat's treasured possession - she tours the house each night with it in her mouth, "singing." She even leaves it in the spot in which she had the most fun each day. So for her to bring it to the baby is HUGE. We're so glad Sunny is growing on the other Sunny. We're re-branding the cat as Sun-kitty (and various other nicknames) to clear up confusion down the road...

When Uncle Scott dropped by after work, Sunny perked right up and was ready to play. They rolled dryer balls back and forth, with Sunny babbling and doing her happy shriek the whole time.

At Sunny's final swim lesson of her first Angelfish series, we got to ride down the slide together. It was so fun we did it twice. Papa and Daddy cheered Sunny on, and she seemed to enjoy it. Some other babies reached the bottom absolutely terror-stricken, but Sunny's expression didn't change as we zoomed around, down and splashed into the pool. Mama's little adventurer, this one. She likes to go fast! Speaking of fast, she walks fast while holding our hands. It's not the plod, wobble, plod, back and forth sway I've seen with other babies. Her steps are quick, light, and almost in line with each other. We shuffle quickly to keep up.

A rainy day turned into a day of baby-proofing the upstairs near Nauntie's room and my desk. Max creatively repurposed pipe insulation to round off evil corners and edges. Sunny thought the flexible tubes were great fun. Other lessons in baby proofing: put away the cat dishes. I almost threw up when I found Sunny sampling the Beef N Gravy shredded wet food. One second she was sitting in the corner playing with her ball, and the next minute she's on the other side of the kitchen, shoving cat food into her mouth! She also likes adult food - she grabbed a handful of filling from my burrito and stuffed it into her mouth before I noticed what she'd done. Still no clear winners with baby food, other than avocado, banana, homemade applesauce and oranges. Yes, she seems to prefer strong flavors of late.

I like to call Sunny with the home phone using the voice changer feature (?!) it came with. "Fun voice" sounds just like a chipmunk. Sunny takes her calls on our cell phones. She started talking/babbling back - pretty cute.

"My daddy is the best. I COULD NOT BE ANY HAPPIER - Look at my face."

"For my next trick, I will fashion this pipe insulation into an elephant."

Spring sunshine gave us reason for an impromptu picnic in the front yard. Hooray for the return of t-shirt weather. Nauntie gets so many smiles from Sunny. The whole kitchen can be busy, full of cooking, music and activity - Nauntie will peer around a corner with only her eyes showing, and Sunny will sense it, find her, grin and often giggle, too. Sunny's great at crawling after us as we move around the house. I'm glad our floor plan is so easy to baby proof.