A year ago, when Kaia started saying fruit names correctly (from “bluey” to “blueberry,” from “manga” to “mango”), I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that her incorrect names for these fruits and vegetables would be a distant memory. It was just too adorable, and while I want her to mature and progress, I just had moments of sadness and wistfulness at the incorrect names. Now that she’s moving into full, complex sentences, I have the same feeling now, but for the sentence structures.

In the last few months, she loves to say to me when I come back from the gym, “Hi, Mummy-Dear! Did you have a good gym?” But this morning, she greeted me with, “Did you have a good workout?” I thought it was really sweet and cute, but I got sad that she didn’t say “have a good gym?” She did, though, ask Chris’s parents when they came back from Texas, “Did you have a good Texas?” which I still love. Whenever they leave the room she’s in, she says, “Are you going to Texas?”

Kaia is slowly but surely showing signs of potty training readiness, but she still isn’t quite there. She still doesn’t know how to pull her pants up and down fully and needs help. Sometimes, when she gets frustrated, I gently ask her, “Can you pull your pants down? Take your time.” And sometimes, when she doesn’t want to do it, she smiles and responds, “I want mummy pull your pants down.” She doesn’t mean she wants ME to pull my pants down, but she wants me to help HER pull her pants down. And when she said this today, I just grabbed her and squeezed her. Sometimes, I really just can’t get over her cuteness and sweetness.

“I love you SO MUCH, Pookie Pie!” I exclaimed, holding her close.

When she has to go to bed or out for her swimming class, she loves to make her rounds, giving each of us hugs and kisses, sometimes multiple times and circles, before saying “bye bye” to everyone. I just love how affectionate she is and hope she never stops being this cuddly.