9/1/02 I forgot to post this one, so the dates don't match. It was actually written on the first of September. Annika just gets more entertaining as the days go by. She's discovering so many new things about the world around her, and it's so funny to see her reactions to them. Friday she was having lunch with her papa while I was teaching my class. I forgot to bring her tippy cup, so she was drinking from a big girl cup, with all the possibilities for spilling. Of course, her water ended up on the floor. But, neat girl that she is, she bent dutifully bent down to pick it up again. She was pretty mad at her dad for trying to lead her away from the futile task. She doesn't give up that easily! Also on Friday, she refused to sit down in her bath tub for some reason, so I was washing her standing up. All of a sudden, she pee-peed in the tub. It made a little tinkly noise as it hit the water. She looked at me with such a face of wonderment, like "Wow, it doesn't usually make that cool noise." I think I will keep this reaction in mind when I try to potty train her. We're not anywhere near potty training time yet, though. Sadly enough. She also has just discovered the joy of turning around in circles to make herself dizzy. Seeing her stumble around the house is quite a hoot, especially since she has the silliest grin on her face while she's doing it. Her other new trick is putting her head under the water faucet during bath time. She covers her eyes and nose, and then she just sticks her whole head under the tub faucet! She really loves it, which means that shampooing her head is a breeze. Another thing that she loves doing is helping me unload the dishwasher. She hands me everything from the dishwasher one by one (which means even putting the silverware away piece by piece!). It slows me up quite a bit, but she loves helping and I sure don't want to discourage that impulse. She even rolls the trays back in and closes the door when we're done (not without trying to climb into the empty dishwasher first, but never mind). On the not so cute side, she has become *very* picky about her foods. She doesn't want mommy to feed her anything, and she doesn't want to eat anything with a spoon. Finger foods only, and mainly french fries from the oven (she goes happy nuts when she does sometimes get "real" fries). She won't eat any veggies, fruits, and even her beloved chicken has been ignored lately. At least she is still getting her daily vitamin, and I give her lots of milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast (diluted at half strength) throughout the day, so I hope she's not suffering too much nutritionally. I know that this is fairly typical toddler behavior, but of course it worries us. Annika has been getting out a lot more recently. As I'm back at work (very part-time), she goes into the university and her daddy watches her while I teach on Monday and Friday. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday I go in to my office for an hour and a half so that I can meet individually with students, and enter grades and things like that. During that time I have a student, Lauren, who watches her. Both with her daddy and Lauren, Annika enjoys running all over the building and poking her head into offices to say "hi!" to whoever she spots. Luckily, everyone seems to like seeing her about. She also loves riding the elevator!