Wednesday night I discovered Annika's 13th tooth has popped through. It's her upper right eye tooth. The corresponding upper left doesn't appear to be too far away either.

Now that we're keeping track of Annika's words, she keeps adding to them daily. It's amazing! She added train, duck and bird(ie) in just the last couple days. I think we're up to 45 words that Annika says and that we understand. The understanding is the key here. Duck comes out as "du" and bird sounds like "bir" but she says them while pointing to a duck or bird and does it repeatedly. She just doesn't have the full pronunciation down yet. It'll all come together soon enough.

Annika loves babies. When she sees one on television or in a book, she says baby and points at it. She does the same with the pictures of her we have around the house. We have to go around and point at them all and say baby. Last night I had the laptop open on the couch and my wallpaper is, of course, a picture of Annika. She decided she really liked that baby and bent down from sitting on my lap to give the screen a kiss. Then she turned around and gave me a kiss. Then the baby got another kiss, then mommy, then baby, well, you get the idea. I didn't want her kissing the screen anymore so I shut the cover of the laptop. Instead of throwing a tantrum, she just kissed the top of the laptop instead and proceeded with the game. Her kisses are getting better too. She actually puckers up now instead of coming at you with her mouth open and tongue out.

Last night after Annika downed a yogurt cup I wetted a corner of a washcloth to wash her face. We were sitting in the living room at the time so instead of going back to the kitchen, I set the wash cloth on the corner of the couch. Annika went off to play while Mommy watched the Olympics (we're big olympic people in our house). After a while, she grabbed the washcloth (who didn't see that coming) and proceeded to wash everything. First it was her face, then mommy's knees, then her Grover doll, then her car, a book, etc. She kept washing her face though. She does the same thing with kleenex. She'll pull a tissue out of the box and wipe her nose with it. Smart and funny, my little girl is.

My little girl also has a mind of her own. She had a sippy cup of milk out in the living room last night. When she was done drinking, I got up to put the cup back in the refrigerator. It was about 7pm at this time. Annika threw a fit because she wanted that cup. She didn't want to drink from it, she just wanted it. I told her she could have it if she was going to drink her milk, otherwise Mommy was going to put it in the refrigerator. She still didn't want to drink from it so I put it away. As she threw a fit in the living room, I grabbed a pacifier off the table and gave it too her. She took it and then immediately headed for the stairs. I followed her without saying a word. She went all the way up to her room. I guess she was tired and wanted to go to bed. So, I lubed her up with lotion (poor girl and her dry skin) then put her pajamas on and put her to bed. She was sleeping by 7:15pm. Her usual bed time is 7:30pm. Funny girl.