Gabi's Lastest Things

Four, so far, has been a wonderful age. A lot less tantrums, a lot more interesting conversation. This could be our best year yet!

She still has her quirks, though. And Gilberto and I are constantly turning our heads to laugh into our arms. Because even things that are bad habits and you are trying your darndest to correct, are funny. Oh, except biting and spitting. Those are never funny.

So here's what Gabi's been up to lately.

1) Tossing everything out of her toy bins until she finds what she wants. Each thing gets thrown in a rapid up-and-over motion behind her. What she wants is always on the very bottom. And even when there are only three things left, and she can obviously see what's left, out they go until the bin is empty or she's found what she wants.

2) Changing her clothes ten times a day. One speck of dirt requires a full outfit change. I'm doing more laundry for her than the whole house combined! Oh, and she MUST dress herself. Heaven forbid I make her wear something other than what SHE deems appropriate. Even if her underwear is showing through her tutu. She's worn some pretty interesting outfits to church lately.

It almost makes me miss her naked stage.

3) Needing the cup that is on the top shelf in the very back, and only THAT cup will do. How does she know it's there? She's taken to climbing up on the counters and scouting all the cupboards. She also found our hiding spot on top of the fridge. Nothing is secret in our house anymore.

4) Putting her hairbands on her stuffed animals for clothes. She has several bears that would fit right in with the long neck Karen tribe. And I am NOT allowed to take them off if I need a hairband for Gabi. Because then the animal would be naked. Which is funny, because none of her dolls have stitch of clothing on.

5) The cutest language endearingness EVER. Here are a few of the things she says:

• Sumping (something)


• Sammich (sandwich)


• She uses for instead of to, including with all of her verbs. Gilberto does this, too, so I think it's something she picked up from him. "Let's go for the park!"


• Forcause (because)


• Beemote control, beemember, beenana. Basically, anything that begins with re or ba gets changed to bee.
  
• A couple while, A minute while (a little while)


• Whobody (who)


• Much more better.

6) Cutting anything made out of paper into little tiny pieces. Including bills and a jury duty summons. But I let her do this because it keeps her occupied for very extended amounts of time. She tried to move on to cloth, but I squelched that pretty darn quickly.

7) Also on the craft front, she loves homemade books. We fold and staple paper into little books of all sizes, print pictures of dolls and stuffed animals off the Internet, and then glue or tape them into the books. Some books are for feathers, or leaves, or just drawings of hearts. I think my organizational tendencies are shining through her here!

8) Armpit smelling. I don't know why, but she's always asking to smell my armpits. And then gives me a report on how they smell. I have a lot more bad days than good days, according to Gabi.

9) She's quite the etiquette cop. Now that she knows it's impolite to chew with your mouth open or speak with your mouth full, she makes sure everyone around her is following the rules. Especially very loudly when we're in public. And she's quite comfortable yelling, "That man over there is chewing with his mouth open!" while pointing to the table next to us.

10) Being on time out from her crayons and markers over and over again, for using them on things other than paper. Like our LCD monitor, my nesting tables from the now defunct Bombay Company and my 600 thread count sheets. The poor kid just wants to beautify the world she lives in, and we keep crushing her creative side.

Most of the time we are busting our guts!