Bella has been enjoying her new range of mobility and her new awareness of the use of Objects. She'll be 18 m/o August 2nd. I often find her standing on a stool or box looking so enthused and proud of her elevated status. Like most homes with toddlers, we have a stool in front of the bathroom sink so that Max can brush his teeth, wash his hands and look in the mirror like a big kid. Oh yeah, and so he can move it to climb up and plant his ass on the toilet when he needs to take a dump. Well, Bella LOVES this stool. She can’t quite see her eyes in the mirror, little peanut that she is, but she gets so much satisfaction just standing there. Her little hands gripping the sink in front of her and her big smile makes this momma glow.

Today, for the first time, she figured out that she can MOVE THAT STOOL to any desired location. Whenever she needed help, she’d say, “help, help, help.” I’d oblige and fix that stool so it would continue to be easily pushed across the floor. She pushed it to Max’s strategically standing dinosaurs in the middle of our living room - then decided the living room wasn’t the right place for it. Or, maybe she was just making a pit stop, I couldn't tell at this point what she had up her sleeve. Max and Daddy were out picking up their pizza for dinner so she had full use of all space - Queen of her Domain.

I soon realized that she had it in her mind the whole time to push that stool into the kitchen right in front of the sink. Just like in the bathroom. I continued to watch her as inconspicuously as possible. I've learned to not praise every-little-thing my children do. I don't want them to do things just for praise. But I was so fucking proud of her! If I feel this much pride over something so simple, I think my heart may explode over the really big accomplishments in her life. As I watched her focus on climbing up on that stool I realized, oh, wow, my kids will eventually be able to reach the sink and DO THOSE DISHES! Reader, I can not tell you how proud I will be when that day comes.

It was neat to see her command of language, too, when asking for help with the stool. I think this is why she hasn’t been sleeping worth a shit for the past two weeks. She's going through a developmental growth spurt in her language skills and its causing her to wake up at 2 am demanding to play Scrabble and have a dance party. This really sucks for me. What has been the worst, is that when I wake up, I’m having a bitchofah’ time falling back to sleep.

Night parenting for Bella is *suppose* to be Hal's responsibility. Eh-hem. But we won't go there. Here. All I can say is that we are both dropping the ball on that arrangement.

I just keep reminding myself that this is a really short blip in time for my children. These inconveniences are going to seem so small very soon.

Hal and I wen't to see Batman, today and whoa... AWESOME. I love super-hero movies. Its one of my many weak spots. I thought I loved Batman for Christian Bale. This one, I love for Heath Ledger. Wow, there will never be another Joker like him. He totally stole the spotlight in that film. Batman was like a co-star or an extra. I can't wait to see it again!