stupid human tricks

i’m going total “my kid is awesomer than your kid” dad now, but i’ve got about ten stories that i just couldn’t have imagine i’d be telling two months ago.

• the garbage man — given the lack of sirens on our new block, sparklet has turned her dulcet affections to the garbage men. each Thursday and Friday morning when she hears the truck, she runs out onto her balcony (which faces the alley out back) and yells out to the garbage man, who wave at her and shout back.
• random hugs — after two years of being the least cuddly baby on earth, sparklet has started giving mommy and i random hugs. even better? the lady sparkler was out of town five of the last seven days, and i only got one “where’s mommy” whine while she was gone.
• refrigerator trained — much to mommy and my amusement, last weekend we saw sparklet walk over to the refrigerator, open the door, get out a yogurt, close the door, open a drawer, get out a bib, close the drawer, open another cabinet, get out a spoon, close the cabinet, walk over to the table, pull out her chair, climb up her chair, sit down, put on her bib, peel off the yogurt top, lick the yogurt top, and start eating the yogurt with her spoon — all without even looking in our direction. serious, what the heck?
• sockpuppets — speaking of “what the heck,” sparklet has started taking off her socks in the car, putting them on her hands, and acting out puppet shows. quick reminder, she’s two years old.
• baby gates — speaking of “what the heck” (part 2), sparklet can now open the locked baby gate at the top of the stairs, go through, turn around, and lock the gate behind her, and continue down the stairs unimpeded.
• baby sleeping — speaking of “what the heck” (part 3), a few days ago i hear a loud bang, followed by sparklet’s door slamming closed, and then sparklet starting to walk down the stairs by herself (we’ve given up — see “baby gates” above). when i went to scold her anyway, she shushed me that her doll baby was upstairs trying to sleep. she then went down to the living room couch, picked up her other doll baby, walked back up the stairs, opened the door to her bedroom, threw her baby up and into the crib (that was the first loud bang, btw) slammed the door closed, and shushed me again.
• photography — after sparklet’s strong artistic burst of photography out of the gate, she now refuses to take a picture of anything other than herself (see above). i’ve got 400 pictures on the point and shoot camera, and 300+ of them are of sparklet’s forehead, stomach or feet.
• animal noises — her vocabulary still isn’t that great but with utterly no warning she has started to scream out animal noises. my favorite has to be the monkey sound she makes when we read the snail and the whale but we’ve got a full range of options — horses, cows, sheep, goats and dogs.
• speaking of dogs — she hasn’t quite picked up the name of my parents dogs (“toby”) so she just pants twice whenever she is thinking about him.
• speaking of not talking — yesterday, she finally strung together what can be arguably considered her first sentence — with a noun, verb and object: “i get ipad now.”

awesome.