Marina Bella Shickler
The Second Year
July 2009
The Eighteenth Month
Marina often breaks out into a "song". She'll even clap her hands and dance around in a circle. She's even picked up our candlestick and used it like a microphone! Hmmm, could this be a future American Idol?
Marina has started going up and down the 2-step area without the use of her hands! She even insists on holding our hands as she goes up and down our upper and lower stairs! She's also very good at letting us know if we left one of the gates open. She'll either bang on it or point to it and say "Mamma" or "Papa" until we close it!
Marina's eyesight is also very keen. She'll often point up and say "bird" and we wouldn't see anything right away. We'd look long and hard, and finally we see a small dot high up in the sky - it would either be a bird or a plane! Anything she sees flying in the sky is a bird to her!
I've started seeing a MOMS club group. It's a group of moms with children close in age with Marina. It's a great way to network with other moms and also for a chance for Marina to interact with other children her age.
Whenever I'm on my laptop, Marina insists on being with me. She'll even get a hold of the mouse and try to manipulate the screen, which makes it hard when I'm entering some of my shops. Sometimes she'll press the keys like I do (she already popped out 4 keys)! She loves watching me play some Worldwinner games. Some of her favorite games to watch are Monopoly Downtown and 9-Ball Pool. When she was a newborn, one of the games I loved playing was Pirate Sudoku. It had a nice tune which she would sometimes repeat. They have since replaced it with several other games.
Marina has also started to communicate whenever her diaper needs changing. It's very cute when she says "Mama, me pee-pee" and touches her diaper. She'll sometimes even lie down on the floor, waiting for me change her! She's learned that the diaper wipes help clean her. She'll sometimes take a couple out to help me clean her (she doesn't have the reach yet).
On the 2nd: We took Marina to the Hollywood Bowl. Roger and Kathy, Dan, as well as Ted's family came up as well. Marina loved it! She spent a lot of the evening dancing on the stairs!
On the 4th: Jeanne and Darren hosted Kathy's 70th birthday party at their place. It had been a while since Marina's seen their dogs Skye and Blue. Marina loves dogs and she fed them a lot of carne asada! Jeanne had prepared some chocolate-covered strawberries similar to what you can find at Edible Arrangements. They were a hit! Dan had wanted to host an evening party at his place for the 4th of July because there was a lot of activities in Long Beach. But since he, Randy, Elena, cousin Mike and his fiancee Renee were a part of the Lake Forest parade (Cyclone Coasters biked it), everyone was so exhausted that the evening plans were scrapped.
On the 11th: Ted and Elise threw Sydney a birthday party at their place. Sydney is now 12 years old! She was just a baby and the youngest guest at our wedding! She's so big now!
On the 18th: Roger and Kathy babysat so we could go to the Coldplay concert at the Home Depot Center in Carson. It was my first Coldplay concert. The lighting was so dark at times that the pictures I took of the screen turned out better! Michael Jackson had recently passed away and they did their rendition of Billie Jean.
On the 25th: Uncle Bob was visiting over the weekend. He stayed at Dan's. It was nice catching up with him. He showed us a postcard of Kernine's latest project. Their son Christopher is also very involved in it. We went to dinner at the Yardhouse in Long Beach with him. Randy and Elena also were able to spend some time with him.
On the 26th: Mark got company seats to the Dodger game (vs the Marlins). We didn't find out until the last minute that the 4th person couldn't attend, so Marina got her own seat for the first time! She did well at the game. She clapped with the crowd. She also wanted to go up and down the stairs several times.
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See more of pics of July 2009:
2, 3
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