I LOVE you!

I'll work backwards since today was pretty exciting for us. It's been a rough week (more about that in a few). After Scarlett got up this morning, I took her into the bathroom to brush her teeth and (as usual) she started pointing to her bathtime Winnie the Pooh. When I gave him to her, she said what sounded exactly like "I love you" and gave him a kiss. I thought it was adorable but figured I was hearing very creatively. Afterwards, I changed her diaper and took her into our bedroom to say good morning to daddy. As we were laying there, I told Paul that it sounded like she told Winnie the Pooh that she loved him. So I said, "Scarlett, I LOVE you!", she then repeated it back to me and gave me a kiss! Then Paul did it and she did the same thing (giving me a kiss afterwards). It was pretty cool! I tell her I love her all the time, usually giving her a kiss afterwards, so it makes sense, but I figured it would be quite a while before we got it in return. It was a pretty great moment.

Anyway, we went to brunch this morning with Claire, Kyle, and Crystal at a new restaurant/bar in Arlington. It was nice and empty when we got there which was perfect for Scarlett to do laps without really bothering anyone. By the end of brunch she was TIRED. I had to sit in the back seat with her on the 10 minute drive home to keep her awake so that we could get her down for her nap. After all of that, she only slept for about an hour and a half, but it was needed.

On that note, I am not sure if she has yet another cold, or it is just the teething. Her bottom right jaw is horribly swollen. She is cutting at least one more tooth -- another molar. As a result, she has a stuffy/very runny nose, her mouth is bothering her a lot, and she has a periodic fever. As expected, all of that adds up to a baby not sleeping through the night. She tries her best, but she can't breathe well and her mouth hurts. So once she does get up, we have a really hard time getting her back down again and it often ends up with her in the basement or in our bed for a while.

Also following our typical pattern, all of that has aligned with a busy week. Paul and I had our Christmas parties, we had dinner with a friend of mine from Florida, a hectic work week and my last week of teaching. Abigail stayed with Scarlett on Thursday and Friday so we could go to our office Xmas parties. Luckily, it sounds like she was pretty good for Abigail, but didn't stay asleep after we got home. Oh well. It sucks to be sleep deprived, but as adults I feel like we can handle it okay. I feel really bad for her because she is also sleep deprived, but feels crappy to boot. She tends to be in pretty good spirits despite it all, but she acts a little manic -- she will start crying all of the sudden (probably her mouth hurting) and has been unusually attached to her milk sippy cup. This week has brought a few more temper tantrums than usual. I hope that it is her mouth rather than a new stage, but between bratty spurts, she has been very sweet and VERY funny. She is a total goof ball. Her favorite thing to do is play chase, but once you start chasing her she moves her arms in and out like she is pulling on a lawn mower cord to get it going. Too funny. She also has a habit of opening her mouth as wide as she possibly can or scrunching up her nose to try to get a reaction. Yesterday she started stuffing her toys down her shirt. And of course, we don't encourage any of this. Today we also saw her trying to feed her toy moose an animal cracker.
=======
She does look like she is starting a lawnmower. Sometimes she runs while doing "the butter churn", other times she raises one or both hands in the air, then slams them down, but whatever she does, she normally ends up speed-walking out of control and crashes to the ground. Scarlett really has come into her own with her sense of humor. She's always had a great one, but the more she develops physically and cognitively, the more creative she gets. I'll try to list a few:
1. Intentionally grabbing an object and not letting it go until we chase her around the house
2. Feeding us her food
3. Hitting herself in the head with her hard plastic maraca (it makes a different noise with each shake).
4. Shoving her fish bowl
5. Dancing goofy while looking at us to make sure we are laughing
6. Shoving a stuffed penguin down her shirt (she thought it was funny when we did it to her, so she repeated it about 15 times)
7. Dancing in the shower while standing and smacking her hands against the back of the shower
8. I was holding her hand at a restaurant and she looked at me and decided to see if she could lean back and touch her head to the ground
9. Imitating an American Indian chant by smacking her open hand to her mouth (not all that gently)
10. Running around the living room, grabbing anything she can find and handing them to us one at a time.

Ten is enough (although the pickle pictures speak for themselves- and we are saving one picture for a rainy day when Scarlett is a bit older... I'll leave it at that.) We need to start writing these things down so we can remember them. I blame old age for my memory loss, Shonna blames the Scarlett pregnancy.

Sorry for the babyblogapolooza this weekend. The unfinished blogs were piling up and we finally got to them.