Poor Boo, BJ -- Happy BB

Well, no wonder BJ was such a grouch yesterday -- it wasn't merely a conspiracy between him and his sister to make mama's birthday a difficult day. He woke up this morning with a fever of 100, snorky and miserable. No doubt he was feeling pretty rotten yesterday. Poor boo.

As a result, BB and I got a little girls-only outing this afternoon: met up with A and C for some time at the park and a visit to the farmer's market. I felt badly that BJ couldn't join us -- he saw me looking up directions just before I left, read the name of the park on the computer screen, and started wailing about how he wanted to go too. Happily, the prospect of watching a movie with dad calmed him down almost immediately. And I have to say that it was really nice to be out and about with only one kid!

BB still kept me plenty busy, of course. She has long wanted to be out of the stroller at places like the farmer's market, and since I didn't have to worry about BJ today I was able to allow her that freedom for the first time. She loved it, especially because it allowed her to pick up random bits of filth off the ground: cherry pits, tiny pebbles, scraps of paper.... it's too bad that you can't safely harness the natural tendency of children to gather trash and use it to make the world a cleaner place. (You can't, of course, because they'd try to put it all in their mouths. Yuck.)

BB's verbal skills are really blossoming. In the car this afternoon, she kept telling me about the "moo!" and pointing out the window. No, she didn't see a cow; the moon was just above the trees, plainly visible. She loves to ask us to read a "buh," and recently she's come to the point where she'll actually sit still for us to comply. Some favorite books at the moment:

• Whose Mouse Are You?
• Goodnight Gorilla
• Goodnight Moon (locating the mouse in each picture is a particularly fun activity for her)
• Little Cats ABC
• My Garden/Mi Jardin
• Trashy Town
• Bubble Bubble
• Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?
• The Tallest Tree
• On The Road (companion volume to the Baby Loves Jazz CD. Not much interest in the CD, but she loves to point out things in the pictures.)
• The Great Big Book Of Things That Go (or something along those lines; it's one of those vehicular volumes that are nearly impossible to read aloud, but she surely loves it!)

She has quirky ways of requesting each of these, usually a combination of sounds and signs. I really want to get some more of her baby signs on video, because I predict that very soon they will be replaced by spoken words. It's fun and fascinating to witness how quickly she's developing, but I'll be sad to see the signs go.