I signed Rosemary up for a little summer preschool thing and it started today. It goes through July and is 2 hours a day, 2 days a week. I expected a little tugging at my leg and sadness that I was leaving, but ooooh no. The kid was all, 'You're cramping my style, mom. Would you leave please?' Sheesh. Just dropping her off at a school and leaving the building was way more difficult for me than for her.

Well, I guess I can say I'm so glad she's over the phase where separation from me caused her to throw up all over herself and everyone else in the room ...

I'm so glad I've gotten her involved in ECFE. It's been a really amazing thing for both Rosemary and myself.

Anyway, so I was afraid to commit to doing too much during the 2 hours that I had to myself (you know, what if I'm a second late and Rosemary burst into tears of abandonment ... yeah right). I decided the best thing to do would be to head to Coco Moon (local coffee house) and read a book. I pulled out The Irresistible Revolution and yowser. I've been reading that book for like 2 months (I'm a slow and distracted reader) and the chapter I read today really knocked me over. I was reading about the time Shane Claiborne spent in Iraq and blubbering over my latte. I mean, really just blubbering. I so deeply appreciate the way that guy is challenging my faith, my politics, and the way I read the bible. The book makes every fiber of my being uncomfortable and antsy and I am excited to see where these challenges bring me.

I just can't help but feel like there's deeper meaning to all this crap Joel and I have been going through lately. We've gotten into some serious (to us, anyway) debt. Things with our house are not going well. Blah blah blah. All this stuff that really doesn't matter except that it's refining us in some way. It's making us more compassionate, challenging the way we've viewed things, burning a seriously deep desire for community, changing our visions for what we truly want out of this life, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I want to get into a pity party for myself and then I feel this excitement ... like, all this stuff is going to so drastically change the course of our lives and although I didn't know I wanted it to be changed, I did and I do.

I've been praying a lot (well, a lot for me which is probably a little for a lot of people ...) about this desire for community and what it means. Joel just keeps saying that he feels like the only answer to all this debt that we and so many people we know are in, is some sort of community living where we all support each other, share our resources, etc. etc. You all Most of you know what I'm talking about, it's not a new idea. It seems like a dream that is so hard to make a reality. Why are we all so independent anyway? We need each other.

A few weeks ago, Rosemary determined that she wanted short hair. She started pointing to pictures of girls with short hair, talking about certain friends who had short hair, and asking to go visit Katie (the person who has previously trimmed her hair). She was so persistent that I decided I should go ahead and let her cut her hair ... I only felt a little sad.

Rosemary peed in the potty today. This is the first time! And it wasn't just a little tinkle, it was a whole lot.

Rosemary has been asleep for an hour and a half and I have spent a good portion of this time thinking about how rough the whole sleeping thing has been ... and how completely amazing it is these days. I won't say that she completely sleeps through the night all the time. But she sleeps through the night well enough for me to not be frustrated at all. And the big thing? She just crawls into her bed, says goodnight, and goes to sleep. I mean, we do have a nighttime routine thing going for her, but I'm just trying to say that the girl goes to sleep easily - and she LOVES going to sleep.

Naptimes used to completely be at the whim of when she would accidentally fall asleep, but for quite some time now, naptime looks like this:

Me (or Joel): It's naptime, Rosemary.
Rosemary: Go to sleep? Tired baby? (And then she finds her ducky and races up the stairs to her bedroom. She either crawls into bed or asks me to hold her and I lay her down.) Go night night? Go to sleep? Night night, sleep tight!

Then I pull the blankets over her, give her a kiss, and walk away. While I'm walking away, she generally starts giggling because she is so happy to be in her bed. By the time I am downstairs, she is sound asleep.

Some of you may not understand just how fantastic this is. But I do, I understand. And I think the Lord is doing this to us so we stop having musings of making Rosemary an only child.

Rosemary's transition to toddler bed has honestly gone so much better than I could have possibly imagined. There was never once a, "Hey! This isn't what I want - where's my old bed?" I don't think I've ever heard a story about a toddler who was transitioned into a toddler bed this early (1.5 years) that was positive. So I spent way too much time worrying about nothing. She loves her stinkin' bed. She loves to play in it, jump in it, sleep in it ... she loves it! The issue of her falling out of the bed was resolved when we took her pillow away. Now she stays on the upper half of the bed and, for the most part, sleeps. She's only once come running to us in the middle of the night. We put her in the bed last Saturday - so it's been almost a week. It's so great, and I'm loving the additional space.

We also put together Rosemary’s toddler bed this weekend. The plan was to just set it in her room and let her play with it for awhile and get used to it. But, she seemed so in love with her new bed that we decided to just go ahead and give it a try on the first night. She did great. She did great the first night, great with her nap, and so great the second night that Joel went ahead and took down the crib. I have heard so many horror stories about the transition from crib to bed that I did not expect it to go like it did.

It is a little different – for example in the middle of the night last night, I heard the pitter-patter of little feet as they came running into my room (though she didn’t argue at all when I scooped her up and put her back in her bed). Also, the first night I checked on her and found her sandwiched between the wall and her bed, with her knees on the floor and her head on the bed. The next night we rearranged the bed so that couldn’t happen ... and when I checked on her she was on the floor about 3 feet away from her bed! I’m not concerned. The toddler bed is very low to the ground and we keep her room clean so I’m not concerned about her getting hurt or anything.

She also likes to jump on it and put her toys in it. Her toys like to sleep (and they all snore).

How many of your kids have or had pillows at Rosemary’s age (1.5)? We gave her a pillow and she loves it, but she doesn’t use it all the time. Is there any reason she needs it? I’m thinking the pillow is the reason she falls off the bed because it takes up so much of the teeny-tiny toddler bed! She starts the night on it and then scoots down, thus scooting off. Hmmm. We could have her sleep at the foot of the bed? Put the pillow there and then when she scooted down, she’d scoot down to the portion of the bed that has guard rails. Hmmm. I suppose that could potentially be a bit dangerous if she tried to climb out and run to our room in the middle of the night? But maybe it would keep her from trying to climb out?

(read: Why my daughter is a genius)

*When we offer her food that she either does not want or is not ready for, she waves her arms like a well-practiced martial artist and says, “All Done,” with incredible shortness. I often wonder when her secret meetings with Mr. Miaggi are taking place.

*At our latest trip to the apple orchard, Rosemary was about to pick up a rotten apple. I told her, “Rosemary, that’s icky!” She walked away from it with a look of deep concentration, and then looked right at Joel and said, “Icky apple!” That was about 3 weeks ago and now every time she thinks of or sees an apple, it’s, “Icky apple!” And she certainly won’t let one touch her lips. I have been trying very hard to watch what else I call icky, since she grabbed that and ran with it.

*Owen hardly ever barks. But pretty much the one time he did bark, we pointed it out to Rosemary, “Is that Owen barking?” Now the word “Owen” is not expressed without the word “barking.” It’s as if she thinks his name is, “Owen Barking.”

*Joel called Rosemary precocious and she announced, “Precocious!”

*She can sing entire verses of songs she is familiar with. The other day, she was playing intently with her little people and we had a CD in the background. While she was playing, I heard her whispering, “whippoorwill, whipporwill, fly through my window, fly molasses candy,” without even looking up! She also announces what song is going to play next, before it even starts on certain CDs.

*She can count to 10 on her own, to 20 with help. Recently, she’s been actually counting things – for example, she was “helping” me fold laundry and as she was picking things up, she’d count them.

*She knows she is not supposed to stand on the benches at the table. Not sure if this is working, but the practice is 1st time she gets a warning, 2nd time she has to get off the bench. As she’s sitting herself down, after the warning, she says, “Good girl.”

*She has muttered a few sentences, though mostly 2-word phrases. However, she gets sentences and wants to say them. As of now, she just strings words together. My favorite? When she was particularly upset, “barking Owen apple ducky.”

*She’s pretty obsessed with belly buttons and when she gets to see one (you know, when we’re not out in public – though don’t think she hasn’t tried), she gives this cute little “aaaah” shriek.

*She says “hi” to everything. “Hi, belly button!” “Hi, cheese!” “Hi, green beans!” And so on.

*When she is excitedly walking, she leans her head forward and gets the goofiest grin. It’s so cute, but worrisome because it always looks like her feet are going to fall out from under her.

*She can tell you what noises all of the following animals make: dog, cat, pig, cow, monkey, wolf, horse, duck, goose, turkey, rooster, bird, kookaburra, parrot, chicken, snake, owl, fish, bunny, elephant, goat, sheep, turtle, butterfly, bee, ladybug, frog ... there are more, I’ll try to come back and add them as I remember them.

It warms my heart when Rosemary wakes up in the morning and starts calling for Owen. Really, how sweet is that?

She is turning into such a little person. It's fascinating to watch her grow and explore. She can say so much, and sing along to almost every song we sing. This morning in her high chair, she just kept saying, "happy, happy, happy." That's the cutest ever.

And the other day, Joel walked into the room and she said, "How ya doin'?" Ah, my heart melts.

Rosemary went to bed last night at 8:30 (using the method described yesterday) and I didn't see her again until 6am.

Okay, that's slightly untrue because I had to change a poopy diaper ... but she didn't even wake up for the change and happily curled back into her crib afterwards.

It would only be right if you all took a brief moment out of your day to do a happy dance with me.

No monthly letter this month. When I started doing it, I planned to only do it for the first year and I think I should stick with that plan since I will do this for future kids and I’m sure it gets harder and harder to find time to do with each kid. I am still going to do a monthly post, because she is growing by leaps and bounds and I don’t want to forget all this. It doesn’t seem totally right to stop keeping track of her development while she’s still developing so much! So, here is this month’s list:

Rosemary at 13 months.
• You took your first steps on mothers day. 4 steps to be exact, and later in the day you took 6 steps. Just a little over two weeks later, walking is your preferred method of transportation. It’s fascinating to watch you concentrate so deeply. You put a lot of thought into each little step and, as a result, you rarely fall down. You are extremely careful.

• Your favorite word is, “Joel!” I called to your daddy from the other end of the aisle in a grocery store and you have been calling it ever since. When you wake up in the morning, you usually call, ”Joel! Joel! Joel!” Other words you can say are (besides, “bye,” which was your first word) “duck,” “quack,” “hi,” “uh-oh,” “thank you.” In reality you are getting very good at repeating words we can say. However, whenever I ask you to say “mommy,” you usually say “dadadada” or “nananana.” Hrmph.

• You know and do the signs for “more,” and “doggy.” I think you recognize signs for “milk,” “eat,” and “bird.”

• You love ducks. Your blanky is a duck and you love the ducks in books and pictures.

• You are a big girl! At your one year doctor appointment, you weighed 25 1/2 lbs and were 32 3/4 inches long. To quote Dr. Aronson, “You’re off the off the charts.”

• You started drinking whole milk and you LOVE it. I’m really surprised at how easily the transition from soy formula to whole milk went. You still don’t eat a whole lot. But you do like chewing on pickles.

• You had your first two plane rides this month and you did amazing!

• You still throw up a lot. You have figured out how to make yourself throw up and you try to do it when you get really upset. We’ve been doing a better job of not making a big deal out of it and you have been doing it less and less.

• Last month you grew your first tooth, you have spent this entire month teething. You have a total of 4 teeth and you are cutting at least 3 or 4 more. Your teeth have grown in an odd pattern. 1st a bottom front tooth, then the top tooth to the side of the front teeth, then your other bottom front tooth, and then the top tooth to the other side of the front teeth. Your top front teeth haven’t come in yet and as a result, your smile is pretty goofy. Actually, it’s a little creepy, to be honest. :-)

• You love crossing the threshold from the front porch to the living room. You go back and forth and back and forth.

• You still adore Baby Signing Time.