The biggest news is that she is now willing to eat adult meat! A couple weeks after the last post she picked up chicken off my dinner plate, put it in her mouth, and didn't spit it out. Now she'll generally eat chicken breasts, pork chops, and steak (if sufficiently tender). Woo! She also likes sunflower seed butter, thank you people who recommended it, though she refuses to believe that she can eat it with crackers, as opposed to off crackers. I should just give her a bowl and a spoon.
Despite this, her weight gain has remained almost flat; she gained only a few ounces from a couple months ago. Her digestive system seems to be fine, but daycare does manage to get more food into her on a given day than we do, so we'll keep working on it.
At the moment, she's getting over what her doctor suspected was a mild sinus infection [*]; I also think she may be getting her second molars, because she was miserable last night and quieted right down when I handed her a cold teether. So this week has been a little . . . dramatic, shall we say. I guess we'll see if it's temporary or a resurgence of the Terrible Not-Quite-Twos. On the other hand, her separation anxiety is a lot better; some days she doesn't require any coaxing out of my arms at daycare at all.
[*] I had a rotten cold earlier and somehow she managed not to get it, hooray!
We have been making a project of weaning her off her pacifier during the day [**], and I have sometimes thought that I wish we hadn't done that now. However, distracting her when she asks for it mostly works and so far I've only given in once, the day she napped for a grand total of fifteen minutes at daycare. This has opened up her expressive language, I think. She's extremely good at "thank you" now, saying it in every appropriate situation without prompting (this is all to daycare's credit, we hadn't attempted to teach that yet). "Please" still generally requires an "Ask nicely" reminder. She likes to shake her hand at me and tell me to be "quie(t)" (she's not real good at terminal consonants yet). One day she said "happy," clapped her hands, and then went and found her puppet-book about that song. With spring, she rapidly picked up "stick," "tree," "rock," and "bird." As previously noted, she's working on her tautologies. And I swear she's singing from time to time. (Dancing is still one of her favorite things to do.)
[**] She still uses it to sleep, which is fine by me. We had a bit of a struggle with her waking up at night early in this period, but she's been sleeping great since.
She's very interested in clothes and fastenings this month. She spent a lot of time fastening the buckles in her high chair, baby pod, and car seats. (She also puts her stuffed Lorax in the high chair, buckles him in, demands I put the tray on, and then puts her juice cup on the tray.) With regard to her clothing, it's no longer just shoes and socks that are fair game: at Easter, she opened up a gift of pajamas and promptly pulled the pants on. As she was wearing a fancy dress, the zoo-themed pants were a very interesting fashion decision. (I thought it was hilarious, and I'm still waiting for pictures from her grandparents.)
Other random notes:
Sand and kid gardening tools was a big hit at Easter. As you can see from the last picture in the list below, non-kid gardening tools are also a big hit.
One of those tools was a spray bottle, and oh my was that wonderful. Especially spraying herself in the face. And yet she's gone all muley about her bath lately, which is vexing.
She can pretty reliably blow bubbles.
We spent literally half an hour today with a bottle of lotion with a pump top (perhaps unwisely, I saw it as an acceptable price for dealing with her problem dry skin). I don't think my skin has ever been so moisturized.
She came to work with me one afternoon when her daycare was closed for a holiday. She demanded to be picked up by three young-to-middle-aged white men with glasses (did they remind her of Chad?) and one older white man with white curly hair (just archetypal grandparent?). And she could work the lever handle of my office door and delighted in shutting it, letting me knock and ask to be let in, and then opening it. She could have done that all day.
And now the links dump:
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/03/thursday_substitute_baby_blogg.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/03/thursday_baby_blogging_032510.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/03/its_grey_and_dreary_here.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/04/belated_baby_blogging_040210.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/04/thursday_baby_blogging_040810.php
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/04/thursday_ninja_gardener_bloggi.php
ETA: fine motor control: pen-scribbing can now produce less than 1" lines back and forth. Language: everything furry and four-legged is "doggie," regardless of size. "Doggie!" "No, that's a squirrel." "Doggie!" "Still a squirrel." Etc.