toddler hilarity

during my blogging drought, I kept notes on my iPhone of funny things Clara said or did that I wanted to remember. some highlights....

~19 months old:  she is crazy about her Pete the Cat doll - takes him everywhere, sleeps with him, etc. she started wanting to "show Pete" everything (especially pictures in books) and she would cram him face first into whatever he was supposed to look at.  around this time we also discovered that we could manipulate her into eating things if Pete "tried" them first. (a few months later, Pete got his flu shot first to help Clara be brave. seriously good strategy on daddy's part.)

~20 months: imaginative play increased dramatically. strawberries are tiny houses. a measuring cup in the bath is a perfect pot for cooking beans, which are then fed one by one to turtle and frog. (Turtle also likes candy.)

~21 months: she reportedly likes to wrestle with the boys at preschool. "wrestling" appears to mean throwing oneself on the ground and then giggling.

~22 months: language has exploded, but sometimes it's unclear if she understands what she's saying, especially with adjectives ("look at that creepy horse!"  "I want to make a dark castle!")

~24 months: (grabs my phone) "I'm gonna text Bay [Bailey, our cat]" ... points to some of her bath toy animals and excitedly insists it's her "new family" (I work in the foster care system and she's read a comic book for foster kids, so that is likely the origin.)  .... If you tell her she can pick out one more book to read before bed, she'll bring you the animal encyclopedia (239 pages).

~25 months: "I'm a bear! Mommy is a buffalo. Daddy is an aardvark." .... Q: Did you play with toys at school today? A: Yes.  Q: What toys did you play with?  A. The spooky alligator.  .... Every day we pass a construction site with a mountain of red dirt and she says "It's a giant cake!" .... She brought daddy some "coffee" - a pot (from her play kitchen) full of Lego fences.