Happy Birthday, Part II

We've had so much fun over the past couple of weeks it's taken me a while to recover! By the time I returned from Roan's wonderful birthday party in Houston it was already time to start preparing for Jen's 30th birthday bash. It may take a couple of posts to get fully caught up.

For starters, here are some photos from Roan's Houston birthday party. Many thanks to all the friends and family who were able to share the day with us. We had gorgeous weather and lots of yummy food. Roan was a real trooper, considering we arrived in from Denver just 15 minutes before the party started! She is such a little champ. Sadly just one day was not nearly enough to get caught up with everyone, but it was much better than the alternative.

You can see all the photos from Roan's birthday here.

Lots has been going on since then. She has started signing! Her first sign was "more," as in "more food please!" She has been enthusiastically learning new words as well, and much of our day consists of her pointing at things she wants and grunting/babbling. Because this tends to make me feel weary by the end of the day - there's nothing like being ordered around by a little cave girl - I've been emphasizing the sign for "please." It's an open palm on your chest moving in small circles.

We had a bitter confrontation one morning over using the magic word in which I wanted her to say please when she was pointing to her milk and grunting. This was apparently an affront she simply couldn't bear. Or maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. She launched into a temper tantrum like I've never seen before. At first she seemed defiant, but at a certain point she acted like we'd hurt her feelings or violated her trust. It was perplexing! Even after we gave her the milk she was still so upset. But now that a few days have passed we've noticed she has been signing please without even being prompted, and with a sense of pride. Today when I picked her up from a day with the nanny, Lindsay remarked that she'd been signing "please" enthusiastically all day.

In other news, she seems to be growing like a weed. She got a *ton* of adorable 18 month clothes for her birthday (which was lucky since she had no summer clothes whatsoever) and she's already squarely into the 18 month size even though the weather is summery only about half the time. It better get warm quick or else she better slow down on the growth curve.

One funny story. This is from a week and a half ago or so. I was on the phone with a client one afternoon on one of my half days when Roan woke up from her nap. Arwen volunteered to go get her up and feed her while I finished up on the phone. About an hour later I came upstairs and Arwen filled me in on all I had missed. I had put Roan down for her nap in just a t-shirt and her diaper, unaware that she is now capable of pulling her own diaper off. Which she did before Arwen came up to get her. And it was full. I mean really full. By the time Arwen got in there she had already been fingerpainting in the color brown all over her sheets, her crib and her hair. The thing that totally impressed me (besides her ingenuity) was that through all that I didn't hear a peep from Arwen. He just took care of it all before I made it upstairs without saying a word - cleaned up her crib, washed her up, the whole 9 yards. Go Daddy!