Paloma’s been busy learning new words constantly, and she’ll repeat just about anything we say. But every once in a while she surprises us. In the past week, I’ve really been shocked at some of the things she has said. I was changing her diaper on Sunday, and I was counting something, I can’t remember what.

Daddy: one…
Paloma: two…
Daddy: three…
Paloma: four…

No kidding! I tried to get her to repeat the trick, but she won’t do that on demand, apparently.

Tonight, as I was putting Paloma to bed, we were saying “night-night!” to Katie and then, unprompted, Paloma says “bye bye! See you!” to Katie as we walked into the hall.

But the one that really blew me away was when we were playing foosball on Sunday. This was our first foosball tournament, and Paloma was not surprisingly beside herself with excitement. The balls were her favorite part, and when she realized that there were two, she wanted to have both of them in play at all times. At one point, after I had scored two goals, she calls out “both balls!” to me, out of the blue. I can’t recall ever saying the phrase “both balls” to her before, so it would seem to me that she is starting to put these concepts together. What a smart little gal we have! We are certainly very proud .

By the way, if you listen closely to the end of the video, right after I tell her “one ball”, she says “two balls”.

Paloma and I were playing at the park the other day, and she became very interested in the spiral slide that was there. Within a short time, she was sliding down it all by herself.

She has been slowly becoming more independent over the past few months, playing by herself, asking for things by name when she wants them. My current favorite is when she wants to read the book “Adorable”, which she pronounces more like “abodo”. She also made me chuckle the other night when she asked me to re-read Dr. Seuss’ tounge twister, “Fox in Socks”. “Den!” (again) she says, after my tongue was already completely tied up in knots with the first read. It makes me wonder if she said it knowingly

Even with all of that, for me, taking the slide all by herself was a big transition. She is such a big girl now, it is hard to imagine how much she has grown… she only just started walking four months ago!

Of course, when I finally got around to taking the video, Paloma’s interest in the slide was waning, replaced by her interest in the other kids and lawnmower. But, despite all of the excitement, she still took one last run down the slide. Earlier, she even took one unexpectedly on her stomach, and actually enjoyed it!