We love fishies

We're getting our first pet in the Velez household - fish! Laurel has taken a liking, no...a loving...to fish. She watches Finding Nemo at least once per day. The infatuation has the impact of her Elmo obsession. She asks for it first time out of bed and anytime we come through the front door. She asks to sit on the couch and watch "fwishhies". Just like Elmo, we have to leave the house to get away from the fishies! We went to Disneyland last week. Alex's company is the middle of a transition and he's had some unexpected time off. So we took the tot to Disney and she had a great time! She's been twice before, but each time we go she seems to pay more and more attention to the attractions. She particularly enjoyed the Finding Nemo ride - of course. And she's starting to develop a fear of things that are naturally on the scary side, like the dark Pirates of the Carribbean ride. She danced to the music in the parade and finally met Mickey and Minnie in person. Being a weekday, the park was much less crowded, so we were able to get some photos. Laurel stared at them dumbfounded like she was meeting a celebrity and couldn't think of what to do in their presence.
Laurel continues to go to her little school and we continue to work on the separation. She can go without us something for a short period of time. But I still wait for her in the parent room for them to call me in when she gets upset. Someday...sigh.
She is learning new words almost daily.
"shar" is shark
sky has a very soft s
mah-yee is molly, my mom's dog
"wat" is rat (the little rat in ratatouille)
she copies a lot of words when you say them but then doesn't say them again. but she's slowly increasing the vocab. she's also asserting herself more. probably a terrible two preview, minus the tantrums. she will drop to her knees and refuse to walk if you try to encourage her to do something that she doesn't want to do. we shall see how that progresses.
We have potty training on our horizon. We bought Laurel her first potty! She does sometimes point out to us that she pees and poos. So we're taking that as a cue that she may be open to the suggestion of a potty. She often accompanies us to the bathroom and she's aware of what we grown ups do. Laurel has also moved out of the baby tub and into the big tub for bath time. She seems to like the play space a lot more and is enjoying some new tub toys.

I will be going to NYC in a couple of weeks for our annual trip to the National Stationery Show. I can't believe it's that time again already. It really snuck up on me this year. But we also have a lot of custom work that we haven't had in the past, so we're feeling a bit spread thin. We have 2 new everyday lines of cards and notes and 3 new lines of holiday plus a custom holiday album. I'm really excited about some of the designs and hope we have a positive outcome. The show is looking to be a real question mark with the economy.