Veronica's language is progressing, and regressing. There's good news and bad news.

The good news: She has mastered the term "kitty", as well as "kitty-kitty". She almost has down "kittycat" too, pronouncing it "kitty-at". She says any one of these three terms when she sees Pita.

Now for the bad news: She thinks "kitty" or any derivative thereof stands for anything that makes her happy. And I do mean anything. If Jason or I make her laugh, we're "kitty." Her favorite food is "kitty." Her favorite toys are "kitty." We can't get her to say mama, dada, or anything else.

We got her to say "duck" last week in relation to a toy on her activity center, over and over again, while playing with the duck. But for the next day or so, EVERY toy on the center was "duck" and she seems to have forgotten about the bears being called "beah." And now, whatever toy she's playing with is referred to as "kitty-kitty" if she's having fun. No duck, no beah, nothing like it. It's like those words flew from her vocabulary - not like she had much of a vocabulary to begin with, but even less of one now.

And it's not like we're discouraging her from saying other words. Hardly. At the very least we're still working on mama, dada, bear, and duck - not to mention other words as well. It doesn't matter. We either get babble or, if she's in a good mood, the inevitable "kitty." It's cute, and it's wonderful seeing her little mind making a connection with a term, but I'm getting a little worried here.

Moving on...

We had our family portraits taken at a place called The Picture People at Polaris Fashion Place. Now, our Sears Portrait Studio experience back in the summer was less-than-stellar. Part of that was Veronica's lack of smiling, due mostly to her being new at it and the fact that she was hungry. But the other part was the bitchy woman we dealt with, who photographed her as well. Yeah, I wouldn't have smiled for her either. But it left me not wanting to get her portrait done again.

The Picture People, though, was GREAT. I loved it. We got some wonderful shots, and Veronica's smiling in every one. Plus a basic package was ready that afternoon (it's supposed to be ready in one hour, but ours took closer to two - a minor gripe, really, considering how busy they were and how Sears took over a week to have ours back.) It's a little more expensive, but we had a coupon, and it's really not that much different in price. Plus I liked our photographer so well that I'm going to ask for her again. (Reminder to self: Suzanne. I tend to forget stuff like that.)

And other news...(Hey, I haven't updated in a while. Bear with me.)

We tried to have Veronica and Zane get portraits together, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Aunt Emily was going to schedule the kids in at the Marietta Wal-Mart, but couldn't get a booking. We opted to have Anne do them instead, which was fine by me because she takes quality photos anyway. She should have her own studio or something.

Anne and Emily set up a holiday backdrop at Grandpa Warren's house. Emily purchased little Christmas outfits for both of the kids - a Santa suit for Zane, and a little Santa-style dress for Veronica. Zane was up to 15 lbs. by this point (probably more by now!), had the tube removed from his nose, and was just a healthy, chubby-cheeked little boy who's about strong as an ox. The kid is Bam-Bam.

Anyhow, we convened. Got the kids all dressed up. They didn't seem to mind, not even the little Santa hats on their heads. They looked too cute for words. Then we sat them next to each other.

*sigh*

Veronica looked at Zane. She smiled a bit. She's used to being around other babies at the babysitter's house.

Zane, in the meantime, wasn't used to being in such proximity to another kid, their Halloween photos notwithstanding. He started crying and lunged for her eyeballs.

This happened numerous times before Ben took Zane into the other room for a bottle. Anne, in the meantime, decided to snap some solo shots of Veronica. We got her to stand up on the chair - the first time she'd stood on her own, November 28! - and got some beautiful pictures of her smiling. Then Ben returned Zane, and I had the bright idea to leave her standing and sit him in front of her. This way, he couldn't reach her eyes and might not be so freaked out by her.

Anne readied the camera. Jason steadied Veronica. Ben placed Zane seated at her feet. The daddies moved out of the frame, and just as Anne snapped the first picture, Zane's hand reached up to Veronica. She looked down at him. He grabbed the front of her little dress. And then, he yanked on it and pulled her right down on top of him, nearly flipping her off the chair. The second picture Anne took in this scenario has an undescernable lump of red velvet and baby, with Aunt Emily's arm in the frame to keep them both from flipping onto the floor. I hate to say it, but since no one was hurt, it was hysterical. :-)

We ended up with some cute pictures of both kids, but unfortunately not together. Ah well. Maybe a shot of them when they're turning one would work. Let's keep our fingers crossed. :-)

And in still other news....

We put up our Christmas tree today. It's Baby's First Christmas Tree, with a Baby's First Christmas ornament courtesy of Aunt Emily. Baby could care less. While we were stringing up lights, Baby was sitting on the floor with her Boppy, squealing in delight when the cat started grooming herself. I've been getting crap from people for about a week now about not having up our tree yet, how the baby will love the lights, but so far Veronica could care less. Oh well, it looks lovely and I'm certainly enjoying it. And Veronica's in grabbing mode now, anything she can get her hands on; perhaps it's good she's not into the tree. :-)

I hope I don't take as long to post again. This post is insane. But it's the holidays, and even with a VERY limited budget and gift list this year, plus a good bit of it done online, I'm still slammed. Here's hoping the next post will still be in 2003. :-)