Flying Solo

Lazy Girl

Originally uploaded by AmericaninCanada.

Shell is doing some painting at her parents' house this week and because of some appointments I had today she got a late start, so she decided to stay overnight.
This meant that I had Gracie all by myself tonight. There's been a couple of nights I've done the night by myself, but probably not in a long while.
With Shell's normal work schedule when she's on a project she usually doesn't get home until after supper time, so in the evening I generally leave the two girls alone so they can have some quality uninterrupted mommy-daughter time. If I'm in the room, Ginny Grace tends to maintain her normal daytime daddy-clinging, so basically I want them to have as much unfettered bonding as possible.
This also means that Shelley handles the nighttime rituals- books, jammies, bottle, teeth, and saying 'night-nights' to the puppies and me. So I'm just not used to those, and GG is not used to having me do them. It makes me a wee nervous.
After dinner I was sitting in the living room getting ready to watch the Leafs game and GG wandered to the back of the house...and got really quiet. Quiet in the 'too-quiet' way. I went to investigate.
GG is a serial-door closer. She closes any door she can. So I was none too surprised to find the hallway door closed. One layer of soundproofing. Then I noticed our bedroom door closed as well. A second layer. Brilliant child!

As I approached the door I could hear the television in the bedroom and her jabbering. She had turned the TV on and had the hockey game on (it was the last channel I was watching) and she was sitting on the floor talking to Dixie.

Just the two of them. An eighteen-month old and her patient big sister doggy, plopped on the doggy bed, having a grand old time without a care in the world.

I wandered in and sat on the bed content to let them enjoy their own human-canine bonding. I never thought THEY needed the same kind of treatment that any other pair in the house needed. She was petting Dixie on the head, giving her kisses on her nose, leaning in and giving her hugs (which to Gracie consist of just laying her head sideways and saying 'aww'). The she pointed at Dixie's eyes and said "Eyes, Dada"

A new word...cool! New words come about one a day or so now. We've got a list. Shell keeps a list of everything which is good because blogging and pictures are the only backup I have for my lax memory. Her vocabulary is up to close to 40 words so we're on a good pace I think.

She looked at me through the bars of the foot of the bed and spent the next few minutes in her 'Hi Dada, Hi Dixie, Hi Wo-wo (her name for Willow)' routine. I told her that when she's a big girl and sleeps in a big girl bed, Dixie could sleep in the bed with her. "But", I warned, "Dixie snores".

"Snore", she said.

ooo...another word! Where's the list?

Well she clearly knows what 'eyes' are, but she's just mimicing on 'snore'...but that means the instant mimicing is upon us.

This is key.

This means someone in the family with a reputation for somewhat of a 'potty mouth' *coughshelleycough* has to be on the best of behavior, lest more colorful words get added to the 'list'.