if only my eyes were a video camera...

I'm sure all moms, once in awhile, see their child do something that will forever be implanted in their "mommy memory". Well, it happened today. Ginger and I have had a few days to ourselves, as Paul is on a weekend vacation up to Northern California to visit his friend Jeff. Today, I decided to take Ginger out to breakfast, and then to the park for some mommy and me time. We had the entire park to ourselves for about 20 minutes, and as usual I overdid it chasing her, going down slides, swinging, etc. I still forget sometimes that I'm 6 months pregnant, if that's possible! My sore back and feet are killing me!

Anyhow, a Dad brought his little girl to the park and she looked to be about Ginger's age, maybe older on first glance. The park we go to is big, but they made it over towards the structure we were playing on, and here's where the memory begins. Ginger RUNS over to this little girl, who is a complete stranger, and throws her arms around her, giving her a big hug. She says "com'on", and waves for her to come join us. Where did that come from?!?! Ginger is a friendly little girl, but that was too much. So the little girl comes running over with Ginger, her Dad not too far behind. We say hi, both of us clearly touched by Ginger's action. the girls played together for a minute, and Ginger said "hi!", squeezed her hand, and smiled while saying "sit" (we were under a big structure that had a little built in picnic table where Ginger and I had been playing). The girl comes and sits, and the Dad asks how old Ginger is, I said 19 months, and asked how old his daughter was, he said 21 months. He was trying to get his girl to talk to Ginger, who was just chatting away with her, but the little girl didn't have the speech skills, from what I could tell. She was adorable, just a bit more shy. And there's my Ginger, just jibber-jabbering away, trying to get her to interact verbally. Seriously proud mommy moment, especially because I could tell, for once, that Ginger has my "gift" (if that's what I'd call it) for communication. We've seen her display more of Paul's skills (art, especially) so this was such an important memory for me! The Dad tells us, "her name is Adrianna" an Ginger says "hi Anna, me gin-ger" and pats her chest indicating "gin-ger" was her name. My jaw, as well as the other Dad's, was literally on the floor!

It could have been from the big breakfast with maple syrup that sugared Ginger up into this gabby little 19 month old, but I will never, ever forget how much pride I felt for her this morning.

STILL asleep....

So, yeah, we've determined that Ginger is unique in many ways, but this one tops it off. At 9:30am on this beautiful Saturday morning, our little girl is still in bed, presumably asleep. What 20 month old sleeps in like this? I've been tempted over the last hour to go in there and get her up like I usually have to do, but at this point I almost want to see how long it will go. Paul and I usually can't sleep past around 8:30 or so anymore, so we've been up and going, just waiting for our daughter to make her appearance. This continues to make me laugh, but still gives me pause even though the doctor has said everything is fine, she just likes her bed, and her sleep. The only idea I can muster is that she may wake in the early morning and play with her baby doll that she sleeps with, or something. Because otherwise she is going to be one challenging teenager to get to wake up for school!

What a difference a year makes...

I didn't realize it when snapping a quick photo of Ginger at Costco today, but the pic on the left was taken on the exact same day last year, 8/15. What a difference a year makes!

Proud mommy moment...

On the way home from daycare this afternoon, as always I asked Ginger about her day ("How was your day"? "Good", "What did you do?" "ou-sid" (played outside) "What else?" "color"..) I think we have this same conversation every day, so it kind of is our special thing...well today, as usual, I asked her if she wanted to sing a song, which she replied (as typical) "♪la♪la♪la♪la♪la♪". Again, we go through this every day, nothing special or "new" news to report.

However, just for fun, I thought it would be fun to say letters to Ginger, and see if she would repeat them. I had no inclination that she would even pay attention, as this was not part of our typical conversation. So i assumed this might take awhile to integrate.

Well, SO not true! I say "A", she repeats it...clearly. Then "B", again, clear as night, repeats it. We go through "C", "D", "E", and then she stumbles on "F". But this was not just the sound. It was crystal clear letter formations coming out of her mouth.

Of course, my jaw was dropped to the floor. I know everyone thinks their child is intelligent, but at this moment I though she was pure genius. I was so proud that she was this far, not having had worked on it with her. I will be sure to ask Maureen tomorrow if she's started to introduce letters, but for now, I'm just reveling in the moment. :)