Today brought about a new milestone: When Jason tried to take a crayon away from Veronica after she'd scribbled on the floor with it, she jerked it away and for the first time ever, screamed...

...


"MINE!!!!"

Whee. What a step. So glad THAT happened. :-P

On a more positive note, she and I played music together tonight. She rapped on her xylophone while I shook a plastic toy maraca. I'm not saying it'll be on your iPod anytime soon, but it was a lot of fun and she really enjoyed herself.

Yesterday was a return to the Columbus Zoo. I shan't bore my readers with gripes about some of the amazingly stupid people we ran into there, nor with my bitching about exhibits that were closed. I will say that Veronica had a good time, and enjoyed seeing the giraffes and a bear. She officially did not like the inhabitants of the reptile house, and was underwhelmed by the giant aquarium. Her favorite thing by far? The twisty slide in the playground area. I think we'll just save our money and take her to the park next time.

One thing of note: She did love the fake prairie dog tunnels, set up next to the now-empty prairie dog exhibit (which really disappointed me, I love those things). She would run through them with great glee. But then she took my hand for me to run in with her. I did. I went to stand up, thinking I'd cleared the tunnel. I hadn't. I knocked my noggin on the ceiling, and when I instinctively jerked down as a reaction, I head-butted Veronica. Jason was waiting on the other end, and here came Veronica out crying, and me out crawling and seeing stars. While Veronica seemed to recover rather quickly, I have a reddish-purple lump now over my right eyebrow. Not one of my finest moments, for sure. :-P

She's a very good kid and her vocabulary is through the roof anymore (well, to us anyway; our friends Susan and Heather stopped by last night, and they didn't understand a word of it.) Off I go to get some laundry done, to welcome a new day at the new job, and hopefully will post again sometime soon.