B at 21 months

I’ve been up in Concord for just a week now, while H does her two-weeks of night float (6 pm to 7 am) at the hospital and A tries to keep to a good working schedule in Manchester. My job is to ease the strain by covering the shoulder hours in the morning and late afternoon, getting sweet B to the wonderful Annie, her daytime caregiver, and bringing her home. This, of course, is a terrible imposition upon me that I bitterly resent.

The weather’s been quite nice most of the time, but yesterday, B apparently felt nostalgic for the New Hampshire winter, and briefly went back to her eggplant hat and woolly mitts

We’ve actually been outside (“Out Dide!”) quite a bit, walking, and playing in the backyard.

Over the weekend, we all spent a lot of time back there, along with the freshly-clipped Jasper the Wonderdog.

 B actually had a chance to spend some time with her beautiful mama. Lots of swingings and climbings and chasings, along with frequent cuddle interludes and a chance to share a few sounds.

All week, she and I have been spending a lot of time looking over the back fence at the fire station, where she has already made friends with the men and been shown around the beep-beeps—the trucks—which enthrall her. (This morning, though, we had only to walk out the front door. A garbage truck was making pickups. Nirvana.)

B’s vocabulary is exploding, she’s singing a lot (The ABC song and its alter-ego, Twinkle, Twinkle, are current favs); she’s dancing (I would say her hokey-pokey is more Gene Kelly than Fred Astaire); she’s developing a devilish sense of humor; she’s got her colors down cold; she can count to 11 (with occasional detours around six and seven); and she’s beginning to be able tell one foot (“wite!”) from the other (“det!”). All this physical and mental activity usually wears her out by evening. The other night she got hold of her pacifier and huggle puppy before her bath rather than after.

No matter what, though, she remains...Supercool!