they melt my heart

Daniel's language development has been exploding this summer. A few months ago, I was still nervously counting all the words he knows, but now there's no point. He's absorbing new vocabulary by the mouthful and his speech is getting clearer, too. He's even making sentences, though they're not entirely grammatically correct, of course. Here's a sample:

"My love my little sister."
"What's cooking, mom? Noodles!"
"My have crackers peez?"
"Anya say BA BA BA BA BA"
"Where's Anya? Hi chubby baby!"
"Mom! Cocoa 'ma 'pa house bottom cup no taste good!" (trans: Mom, the cocoa at Oma and Opa's house didn't taste good at the bottom of the cup)
"Daddy say Anya suck pakes" (trans: Daddy said "Anya, do you want to suck on a pancake?"-- Stu really said that and Daniel hasn't let him forget it)
"Chimps no eat poop yet!" (That's just what it looks like and it would take too long to explain, trust me. Let's just say it was a Learning Moment gone wrong at the zoo.)

Anya continues to be chubby, sweet and red-haired. She giggles and coos and plays peekaboo behind the door frame. She can't be without me at night (not without screeching like a cat devil, anyway). She adores her big brother. She's not trying to crawl but she's on the move anyway, scooting around on her chubby little butt to get to anything Daniel is playing with: books, puzzle pieces, kitchen gadgets, train tracks, pretty much anything but her own toys. Of course, at 8 months she isn't saying any words, but she utters a lot of "BA BA BA BA" and blows lots of raspberries. It's good being their mom.