For the Grandparents - It's Millie Time

Well, it's been quite a while since I've opened the fountains of maternal effusiveness to update you on little Miss Millie.  Ironic, you might think, since this blog at one point was ONLY about her.  So let us begin.

Millie is developing at a rate of speed so fast it's hard to keep up.  We are at that stage where we have to definitely watch what we say because within a minute it will becoming out of her mouth as well.  Case in point - last night, after having a girls night out (Roger away for work), we returned home in the dark and the full moon had just risen so it was illuminating the otherwise pitch black streets (curious point - Arusha has street lights, they're just never on).  Millie was mesmerized by the moon and kept craning her neck to keep it in her sights.  When we got home, she kept staring at it, even while I was chatting with the guard and asking him how to say 'moon' in Kiswahili.  Interestingly, the word for 'moon' is the same word for 'month' which I remarked on to the guard.  Millie was still staring at the moon, but she managed to hear me say 'month' and then she kept repeating it throughout her bath!

In addition to mimicking words, she loves to mimic actions.  The nerdy experts call this symbolic play.  She does it quite frequently with lotion and soap, trying to rub it in to her arms and legs.  She just started doing it with deodorant as well (cleanliness is a virtue!).  But then yesterday, as she was eating oatmeal (on her own, mind you!) a little bit spilled on the chair.  She requested a napkin (by name) and proceeded to clean it up!  While this may be emblematic of her developmental acumen, it's probably speaks more to her mom's type-A tendencies when it comes to meal time, sadly.  But I think you get the point.

Millie's favorite activity is probably stickers, followed closely by singing and looking at books.  Oh my, the singing.  She has a rotating play list of favorites and at the moment its 'Wheels on the Bus', 'Pop a Little Pancake' and 'Zoom, zoom....'

The weather here has been funny lately.  The cold stuck around much longer than last year, then we had about 10 days of blisteringly hot weather and now we're back to moderate and comfortable temps.  During the hot week, we went to the pool about four days in a row and it's been really fun seeing her enjoy it at this age.  When we go, she says 'pool, yeah!' and is really confident in the water.  She particularly enjoys drinking it while trying to blow bubbles.  One thing about Millie is that she is a brave and confident little girl.  She will choke at least 10 times in the water (or while drinking water from a non-sippy cup) and isn't really deterred.  She even finds it humorous.  Seems kind of disturbing to laugh about it, but she is quite hearty. 

Mille has learned about five animal sounds - lion, cat, dog, horse and sheep.  Next weekend is Halloween and feels like we should take advantage of her talents (roaring) and attributes (massive mane of hair) by making her a lion.  I have the brillant idea of teasing her hair to make it into a lion mane, but methinks that could be more painful for us afterwards.  Thankfully, Roger is in charge of bath time, so its sounding like a better idea even as I write this.  What do you all think?