Here’s another of those catch-all blog posts meant to capture all the cute things Zoe does – not to point out how far behind I am with blog posts, so humor me. I hope it’s so chockfull of cute stories, you won’t even mention it. Let’s see how it goes:

1. She likes to look at herself, a lot. Maybe all kids do? But to see a clear example of what I mean, check out THIS VIDEO I recorded of her “singing Happy Birthday” to Uncle Frank, during which she was looking at herself the whole time… (note: Asha is our neighbor, who just turned one)
2. She has a sudden interest in dresses. Pink ones. I knew this was coming, but honestly, other than Minnie Mouse, she hasn’t been exposed to anyone very girly yet – she’s not even two… I’m sticking to my guns on the pink thing (so far) and at least when she says “pink” she gets fuchsia, but we now own several dresses.
3. If you ask her the name of any animal (not its kind but its “name”), she says its name is “Crunchy”. We have no idea where she got that from, and on one level, it’s gross (think KFC original recipe). Other than that, it’s funny and applies to cats, dogs, birds, and squirrels equally.
4. She loves to draw circles. Honestly, she’s quite good at it. Though if you ask her to draw a triangle, that too looks a bit like a squished circle.
5. She’s starting to read to us. I know, that’s not “quirky” – it’s actually quite cute. But I had no idea how many books started with “Once upon a time” and ended with “The End”. Except The Cat in the Hat – which she opens and says “The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss”, clear as day.
6. She is obsessed with colors. She knows them all and is learning their spanish equivalent with ease. She has tons of crayons and lately has started asking mommy/daddy “what color we want” and handing us one. This week she started asking the same about her HAIR, as though the strands were different colors, then pretending to pull one out and give it to us.
7. She dreams a lot, and vividly. Every morning (and often lately in the middle of the night) we get a full account of various dreams about things like red elephants up in trees, random comments about garage doors, brown kitties with orange stripes running with dogs, or a quick rundown of learnings from her Yummy Yucky book.

And those are just a few of the more interesting highlights from our days with Zoe lately. As her 2nd birthday rapidly approaches, and she’s starting to have a more vivid imagination, can basically say anything, and has begun to have feelings and moods (yay?), we’re so excited to see what happens next. Especially after she starts school on September 4th and is surrounded by lots of new “influences”… May she take the great stuff and leave the bad habits to the other kids, which I’m sure she will, right? (please say yes)