Helping

We have a bucket of rags in our laundry/storage closet. And whenever the washing machine door is open even a little bit, Lil is always putting in a load of them. She really seems to dig being helpful. If I'm cooking, she wants to put the salt in the water. If she spills something (which is about every 10 minutes, since she's experimenting with cups), she grabs a rag and starts wiping it up. And she tries (kind of) hard to put away her blocks or whatever other multi-pieced toy she's playing with (for a few seconds, anyway).

She's also sleeping like mad. I finally went in to her room at 8:25 this morning, just to make sure she hadn't run away! After going to bed at 6 for months and months and months, she now goes down around 8 and sleeps until about 7:30. It's major. Scott and I sleep 8 hours regularly, and we don't have to go to bed at 9:30 to make it happen. (Knock on wood.)

Her big obsessions are dropping acorns down a water grate, kissing her stuffed animals Bunny and Teddy (aka "teddely"), going in the sprinklers, washing her hands, emptying out our wallets, singing "ring around the rosie," and sticking her tongue out at people on the subway. Overall, I'd say 19 months is a fantastic age. She has her tantrums, which Scott calls "throwing a wobbly," but the reasons are usually pretty clear and she's still easily distracted.

Now if we could just teach her to scratch our backs....