Collector

While putting up dishes this week, Sara Beth decided to pilfer the silverware basket for her own uses.  We had the pantry open; she carried her newly obtained container and stuffed anything she should grab from the bottom shelf.  She then carried around her loot around the kitchen, routinely stopping to take it all out and repack it.

Then, this weekend, we went to the harvest festival at our church.  It had pony rides, but Sara Beth didn't want to be away from her mom.  It had a petting zoo, but the bunnies scared Sara Beth, and she burst into tears.  She did recover enough while walking around the pumpkin patch, and decided that she wanted to see how big of a pumpkin she could hoist.  She lifted a rather large pumpkin, but she didn't use proper form, and lifted using her back.

Our church also has a playground with a couple play sets.  Sara Beth loved playing with the wheel, and made race car noises while spinning the wheel back and forth, just like her daddy taught her.  She seems to be fascinated with cars and also loves to sit in my lap while I am in the drivers seat of my car and push all the buttons on the center console of my car.  Don't call CPS on me, the car was sitting off and in my garage at the time.

Getting back to the things Sara Beth collects: her mom's bracelets.  Whenever the closet door is open, she will go into it, open the bracelet drawer in Heather's jewelry box, and then carefully place every single one onto her hand. 

In this picture, Sara Beth carried her purse into the front room of our house and in the process of reorganizing it.  She will empty everything out of her purse, and then begin stuffing things back in.

Breakfast

This week past has just flown by, and I just realized how long it has been since I last posted.  Sara Beth will now regularly feed herself at the table.  In fact, quite often, she will refuse food offered from our hand, and will only eat it if we place the food on her tray for her to pick up.  In the below picture, we let her sit in a "big girl chair" after eating the majority of her breakfast on her own.  She was so interested enough in Heather's toast that she didn't mind eating it out of Heather's hand.

These apples initially started on my plate.  I made some sliced apples covered in peanut butter and raisins as a snack for me while Sara Beth ate her lunch.  She decided that my food looked better.  But she didn't eat the apple; she just sucked all the peanut butter and raisins off of the slice, then tried to give the plain apple back to me.   

Heather makes really good food.  Sara Beth agrees. When Heather cooked some oatmeal for Sara Beth, it took too long to eat messing around with silverware. So Sara Beth decided to do it the old fashioned way.  She picked up the bowl and brought it to her mouth to slurp it up, but the full ramifications of the theory of gravity are still eluding her.

But Sara Beth wouldn't let a thing like half a bowl of oatmeal in her lap slow her down.  She proceeded to lick the bowl to get the few bits of oatmeal that still clung to the sides.  

Quite a Week

This past week, Sara Beth's great-grandmother passed away.  We went back up to Wisconsin for the whirlwind funeral.  Heather got Sara Beth a beautiful dress to wear.  

While up in Kenosha, we had to go by the Jelly Belly Factory.  Sara Beth was like a kid in a candy store.  She kept trying to grab or at least touch the different bags of candy.  Once I put her in the cart, it became a lot easier to contain her.  There are little yellow strips of text by the handle to the cart warning that no children should ever sit in the cart.  I ignored them.

Also, since it is getting close to Halloween, we went to the local pumpkin patch.  Sara Beth didn't know what to do with the below photo-op and stared blankly out of her cut out.  It wasn't until I stuck my head through the other hole that she smiled.

The pumpkin patch also came with an animal pen and food you could feed them for a quarter.  Sara Beth liked the animals when she saw them from afar, but as we got closer and closer, she clung tighter and tighter to Heather.  She finally reached out and touched a goat, but it took a while, and several quarters worth of animal feed.

The pumpkin patch also offered a maze built out of hay.  Sara Beth almost made it through the thing, but she stood up a little too quickly and knocked her hat off.

The plane flight back home went well for the most part.  We were bringing so much stuff back with us, we checked a bag.  As soon as we got in the air, Sara Beth guzzled down two bottles of milk and fell to sleep soon after that.  She slept most of the flight, but near the end, she woke up, and vomited all over Heather, her doll, and herself.  Fortunately, I missed the worst of the smelly stuff.   The spare set of clothes was in the bag we checked.  It was so bad we stripped off Sara Beth's shirt and she flew the rest of the way to Dallas in her pants and diaper.   

  Once we got home, Sara Beth at a quick dinner, took a bath and eagerly went to sleep in her own bed.

Football

Sara Beth got to watch TV for the first time this weekend.  We sat down as a family to eat some pizza and watch the football game.  Sara Beth was entranced and kept repeating "football" as I explained how the game worked.  After 5 minutes, she did get bored and started climbing around the couch cushions, but we all had a great time.  The next day, while I was at work, Sara Beth ran up to the TV, looked at Heather, and said "football."  When Heather said that it wouldn't come on again until next week, Sara Beth then ran to the front door and declared that she wanted to go outside instead.

Sara Beth is becoming proficient in playing with the toys that require dexterity and shape recognition.  She can now take the square  shape out of her cookie jar toy and place it in the square hole in the side of the toy.  She will also pick out a plywood puzzle and remove and then regularly replace the pieces in it.

Even though she has begun to form these new skills, it doesn't mean she has lost her old habits.  As you can see in the below picture, she will still pull all the toys and books out of their proper bins on a regular basis.  And she generally has a surprised look on her face when I catch her in the act. 

Baby clothes do not come with enough pockets.  At least that is what I have decided after watching Sara Beth come up with inventive ways to carry all her items around the house.  In the below picture, the cart with a doll is being pushed with one hand, while she carries a second doll in the other hand.  This leaves no empty hands to carry her "lovie" blanket.  She has to resort to tucking the blanket under her chin since her pants do not have any effective pockets.

Sara Beth is taking her bed time rituals to heart.  Tonight, we wore her completely out.  Half an hour before her regular bed time, she came out of her room and walked to Heather caring her "lovie" blanket and her bed time story.  After listening to the bed time story, Sara Beth brushed her own teeth and went to bed.