Finding Features

Evie has discovered her face. For a couple of months now, she's known where her eyes, ears, nose, lips, teeth, hair, belly (button), fingers, and toes are, and has been able to point to any of them when asked. And she knows where all of those body parts are on other people and on her stuffed animals. She's able to help us dress her by moving her arms and legs into the appropriate holes when asked, and she likes to wiggle her toes at us. She loves playing the Finding game where we ask her "Where are Evie's eyes?" "Where's Daddy's nose?" "Where are Mommy's ears?" "Where's the giraffe's tail?" etc. So far her favorite features to find are noses and belly buttons. All of her toys have a nose, and so I think it's the easiest for her to find. Besides, we make a silly "Beep, beep, beep" noise anytime she pokes one of our noses, so I think that helps make it fun for her. When she was learning about belly buttons, I would tickle hers and make her laugh, so now she thinks it's lots of fun to tickle our belly buttons too, but she has to pull up our shirts and undershirts to find them. It doesn't help that her belly is round enough that she can't really see her own belly button. When I ask "Where's Evie's belly button?" she pokes the top of her belly instead of her actual belly button, but she still gets credit for knowing that one. Of course, it's getting harder and harder for her to find my belly button, too, since my belly's getting rounder and my belly button isn't an "innie" anymore--it's getting flat instead. I think that on some level, Evie understands about my belly and knows that there's a baby in there, even if only as an abstract concept. If I ask her "Where's the baby?" she'll tap on my belly--after pulling up my shirt and undershirt, of course. One morning I asked her "Will you give the baby a kiss?" and she gave me the sweetest little kiss on my belly. Then that kiss quickly turned into her first ever zurbit as she discovered how fun it is to blow raspberries against other people's bellies. I'm not sure if that was a display of sibling rivalry, or Evie finally paying Mommy back for the many zurbits I've done on her belly, but either way I was laughing hard enough make her lose contact with my skin. Such a funny little girl! Now that she has most of her individual features down, I've started trying to teach her to find her face as a whole. She thinks it's great fun when I cover her entire face with one of my hands and exclaim "Face!" but her own hands are so little that she only covers her mouth and nose when she tries it. Oh well, I think that one counts as well. Todd's been teaching her to find her chin, but she's still shaky on that one. He's planning on moving on to her knees next, while my next move is her booty. I figure, I say it often enough ("You stink. Let's go change your gross booty into a clean one!" or "Are you dancing? That's right; shake that little booty!") that it won't take her long to catch on. In the meantime, I cover that cute little face with lots of kisses and praise her when she finds the right feature the first time we ask, which happens most of the time. Mommy loves that smart little girl!