Mostly we sit on the couch and read books. I feel bad for the poor girl. It's no way for a toddler to spend the summer. Nonetheless, we have had some good times. With a little creativity, we have managed to provide her with at least a small amount of cheer. Here are some things we've done:
We painted our toenails! Oh how i have longed for this day. Being a VERY girly-girl, i knew she would love it. I was biding my time until the right moment. It wasn't my best paint job, due to one set of nails being very squirmy and the other set being extremely difficult to reach.
We made a cardboard BabyGirl. The colors are not very bright, but i hope you can see it a little bit. She thought it was great. For some reason, she kept calling it "Space Monkey." We could never figure out why. But for a day or two, Space Monkey was her dynamic duo and they did everything together. For example: she was walking towards her room and said, "Wait! Need to bring Space Monkey!" Unfortunately the novelty was short-lived, possibly due to the difficulty of portability of the Space Monkey. So now for poor Space Monkey is shoved in the corner.
We FINALLY unpacked all of her books! She had way more books than space to put them, so many of them remained boxed up until we bought a bookcase. It was like Christmas, both for us and her. Even The Professor and i had forgotten that we had certain books. The bookcase is in BG2's room, so the BabyGirl carried her folding chair in there and spent about 3 days reading loads of new books. Then she wised up to the fact that just because the bookshelf is in that room, doesn't mean that the books have to stay there! So now she simply carts the books here and there and everywhere to read them wherever is convenient for her.
We started watching YouTube videos. This was a big strategical error on our part. The BabyGirl was sick with a bad cold, and we needed a low-energy source of entertainment. Now she's addicted to youtube and wants to watch it all the time. This particular video was her favorite for a while. It has about 94 million views, and i'm pretty sure that at least 4 million of those are the BabyGirl. It's fairly cute, so it doesn't get annoying immediately like most kid videos. You can watch it for at least two dozen times before you're totally over it. The Professor's favorite part is "Waddle, waddle," and he enjoys singing it to me as i walk around. The other day when the BabyGirl and i were at the grocery, she gave me a mischievous smirk and asked, "Got any grapes?"
The only time that the BabyGirl gets any real excitement is when the Three Brothers are involved. Her best buds are three boys ages 4, 2, and 10 months. She LOVES hanging out with these guys. About a month ago we all went down to the Children's Museum together. Recently they took her with them to a local park that has a kid's farm. Yesterday she stayed at their house while The Professor and i toured one of the hospitals in town, and they gave her a rose! She's two years old and already boys are giving her flowers. I was at least 21 before a boy gave me roses.
I appreciate the BabyGirl's patience in bearing with us through this low-key summer. Not that she has any choice in the matter =]. Hopefully next year we can make it up to her!
