Gloria loves to do everything for herself- pouring the milk for her cereal, brushing her own teeth, putting on her own clothes, brushing her own hair, putting on her own shoes. Me, she says frequently, meaning I want to do it myself. And she is rather mechanically inclined. Taking things apart, unscrewing and re-screwing the tops on things, squeezing cream out of tubes, these are a few of her favorite things. She is obsessed with buses, most likely related to her daily experience of meeting Charlotte at the bus stop. She's also started spending a lot of time playing in the doll house with the bunny family and various pieces of furniture, the toilet and high chair being her favorites. Her lovey Po is a constant, as is Po's best friend Mimi the dog. When she plays with dolls or animals, they tend to do a lot of sleeping, dressing and undressing, and bus riding. At the playground she is very watchful, often just staying in one place and observing the goings-on of the other kids. She also likes to hang from a good bar. Slides are not her favorite thing, but she enjoys stairs. Drawing is also a favorite activity, although playing with the pencils and markers tends to take up more time than any actual artistic creation. God bless her, she's is still always happy to go to sleep, both at nap and at night -I've never met a baby so pleased to be put in her crib. She is such a sweet little thing, when I kiss her and hug her too much she tells me, space mama. When she's upset about something, usually she wants access to some item and that access is denied, I calm her down by holding her close and gazing out the window together, watching the cars, the birds, or of course the buses.
We had a blast on Halloween-we organized all the kids on our block to go trick-or-treating together in a pack. Charlotte got out my old peacock costume, Gloria was a flamingo, Matt was a last-minute Batman, and I was medusa.
