The little things...they do add up to one LONG post!

We've really been slack in keeping up with the Fidget Files...I've been keeping a list of the "little things" I've been forgetting to post. So, here's an attempt to catch y'all up on the "little things." And as they tend to do...the "little things" add up, so this is one long post, sorry.

Being around Fidget lately is increasingly more fun and amazing every day. We marvel at how she is growing and changing and learning and how awesome it is to witness her development. As I type this., we're watching a DVD of the movie Click. For those who are not aware of the movie's premise: It's about a guy who ends up with a remote control that allows him to control his life, And he eventually ends up losing parts of his life as he becomes so wrapped up in skipping through the "hard" parts trying to get to the "better" parts. And I can't help but think how lucky we are to get to witness all of these amazing changes in Fidget, and I hope that we can always remain cognizant of how lucky we are and that we'll never lose sight of that and get so caught up in the every day business of life that we miss how precious the business of every day is with a kid. How nice it would be to have some magical remote if we could use it to hold onto some of these very precious days that seem to be slipping too quickly.

It's so much fun to watch Fidget become a little person. Every single day she becomes more interactive with her world, and it's amazing to see what she's learned. Teaching her sign language has been such a rewarding experience for me. It has really helped me grasp just how much this little one is a sponge and how much she really does grasp what's going on around her. I've mentioned before how she's shocked me with a sign after I had just about given up on her "getting it." When in fact, she's just teaching me that she's only going to participate when she's ready. She has done that with several of the signs we've taught her. We'll spend days and days trying to teach her a new sign, and then we'll give up, but when she's ready, she will use it, and sometimes that could be days after we'd given up on her using it. Her list of signs now includes: More, eat, milk, duck, bird, cat, dog, fish, elephant, apple, banana, please, thank you, stinky (this is definitely improvised, and a copy cat of Mom's reactions at recent diaper changes, but amusing just the same), and bye-bye. Plus she can point to her head, shoulders, tummy, knees, and toes, but she's still convinced that her nose is on Mama' s or Dada's face.

She's started babbling more. Lots of that has to do with the fact that I've actually been able to wrestle her "nah nah" (pacifier) away from her for several intervals during the day. It's still a very necessary comfort for her, and she's no where near ready to give it up, but we'll get there. Again, as she's taught us...it will come...all in her own time. But those moments we are without it, we are blessed with much conversation that we wish we could understand, but we also have the beginnings of a spoken vocabulary. She says "Hi "and "Bye Bye," and she's started parroting "Downstairs" (she knows that's where we get breakfast...more on this later) and "Kiss." She's also started blowing kisses! Our favorite at the moment has to be "Uh Uh Oh" when something falls (or more likely, is dropped) to the floor.

As for Fidget saying, "downstairs..." I'm finding that unlike me, Fidget is all about breakfast! Every morning before we head down for breakfast, I look at Fidget and say to her, "Are you ready to go downstairs for breakfast?" At which point she runs to the bedroom door and bangs on it until I open it, then she stands at the top of the stairs until I pick her up to carry her down. She then points down the stairs and says to me, "Downstairs." And once we're downstairs, I can't get breakfast made quickly enough!!!

She's made great strides in the teething department. Her first molar (bottom left) cut through on December 9th, and since then her two top molars have cut through, and we're waiting for the bottom right molar to come in any day now. She didn't sleep through the night last night, and she's been tugging at her ear today and needs something in her mouth at all times to chew on, so those clues along with a very swollen gum tell us it should be making an appearance any time now.

Another little move that almost knocked me over...though this is not completly new...is that Fidget likes to help when we're dressing and undressing her. If you start helping her free her arms from the sleeves, she can almost completely get her shirst off. The fact that a year ago she couldn't sit up on her own...well, this little act just blows me away.

And Fidget's love of music persists. She loves to dance around the room...Led Zepplin (Dyer Maker) and Pink Floyd (Young Lust, unfortunately) have proven to be new favorites when listening to the radio lately. So, with her consistent display of a love for music, specifically anything by Justin Roberts, we decided to take her to her first concert this weekend since Justin Roberts was doing a show in Wilton. Now at home or in the car, if you pop in a Justin Roberts CD, Fidget will start to rock...so, we expected her to have a great time at the concert. She did enjoy it, but she appeared to be Comfortably Numb (refer back to her love of Pink Floyd). Of course, that could also be due to the fact that it was during her nap time. It cracks us up how Fidget is quite a little entertainer at home, but put her in a situation where there are lots of people, and she becomes an observer. She was pretty mellow throughout the whole experience, but her little friend has shown us that he's going to be quite the little rocker. If we had let him, he probably would have joined the toddler mosh pit. NO, you did not misread that. Yes, there were TWO mosh pits of bouncing, jumping, waving, singing, screaming pre-schoolers. And, to top it off, they stormed the stage for the encore - just picture 100 little kids jumping up and down waving their arms and banging their heads like it was Metallica on stage. It was worth the ticket price just to observe this. Oh, and Fidget did get her very first concert t-shirt out of the deal.

If you've stuck with the post to this point, either your children are grown, or they sleep amazingly well! And we thank you for taking your time to be interested enough in the little things about Fidget that keep her parents amused.