I hope I can remember all of the little things this month, I am sure I'll have to come back and add more to this post as I think of them.
Anna has been "singing" more. She's actually just saying a lot of lines from songs but I'm counting it as singing since I've never spoken words to songs, just sung them. She started with a version of Hickory Dickory Dock that we have on a CD (it is set to a tune) and has built up to creating her own lines for The Hokey Pokey. As you can see in the above video she learned That's Amore last night when we saw the moon on our way to watch Craig work out in the gym. She'll sing lines from songs while they're playing in the car and randomly quote them while we're out as well. We've also started (finally) listening to more music in the house now that Craig got a cute little speaker we can plug an iPod into (we didn't have a great set-up back in Texas so we didn't listen to music in the house much, just in the car).
Her speech is getting clearer and clearer all of the time. She is always talking and speaks in sentences very well. Sometimes we think we need to stop and explain the concept of run-on sentences but she'll get it.
She has started to respond (sometimes) to strangers who ask her questions (like waiters or store clerks) if they ask the right question. She says "please" consistently and we're working on "thank you."
Overall, I'd say that she has adapted very well to our new life in Qatar although I know we're both ready to get out and make some more friends. I'm hoping to sign us up for a music class this winter and we'll keep checking out playgroups until we find the right fit for us.
She is kind of at a stand-still with potty training (we haven't really been making an issue of it; I'm waiting for our air shipment with potty books, stool, second potty, and training underwear—and real underwear—to arrive). We've switched to pull-ups full-time so she can practice the pulling up and pulling down aspect of the process although she hasn't gotten that quite yet (pulling down is more intriguing than up). Another reason for the switch to pull-ups is that she will not lay down for a diaper change so we must do it standing and I am completely useless trying to put a diaper on standing.
The last thing I can think of has happened over the past couple of days. I am not a particularly "girly" girl but Anna & I have been doing something that appears to be pretty girly. I treated myself to Santa brought me some Body Butter from the Body Shop this year and somehow, Anna & I have started sitting in her bus and putting body butter on our legs (she usually says her knees are itchy and asks for body butter) and tummys and backs, etc. Anna gets super giggly when we do this and it must be done in the tent where it adds that extra girlie-ness element to it.
