Little Sweetheart

Evie is becoming quite the affectionate little sweetheart of late. For many months, she's understood that her Mommy loves her. Babies are supposed to have trouble understanding pronouns, so one day I was trying to help her understand exactly how I felt about her by saying "Mommy loves Evie" and patting each of our chests in turn. She grasped the concept immediately, and ever since, she'll come up to me, pat my chest over and over, and smile while I tell her "Mommy loves Evie!" Lately, very rarely, she'll pat her own chest first and then mine, and I like to think that she's telling me that Evie loves Mommy. At about the same time, she started spontaneously giving kisses. Before, she always needed prompting to give someone a kiss, and was usually very bashful about it. Except with Todd. Evie loves her Daddy, and enjoys giving him kisses. Maybe that's because she sees how much Mommy enjoys kissing Daddy. We've never been shy about kissing in front of her, and, even when she was only a couple of months old, she's always gotten a huge goofy grin on her face every time she's caught us at it. I have to admit, it warms my heart to know that my daughter knows true love when she sees it, and I hope she finds an eternal sweetie of her own when she grows up. Well, on General Conference weekend, Todd and I were sharing the large red chair in the living room during the Sunday afternoon session and Evie asked to be let up with us, so I pulled her up and settled her between us. Suddenly, with no prompting whatsoever, she kissed my knee and then Todd's shoulder. Then she snuggled against his arm with a smile. Ever since then, she bestows sweet little kisses all the time. She picks up whatever stuffed animal she's currently playing with, kisses its nose, and rocks back and forth with it snuggled to her chest. When I ask her if she's snuggling her bear (or lion, or giraffe, etc), she just smiles and gives the animal another kiss. Sometimes she even snuggles her critters into the ground and lies on top of them with her head buried in their soft bellies, rising periodically to kiss their noses some more. It's even become part of her bathtime routine. Once she's clean and is done playing and splashing with her duckies, I squeeze the water out of each one, she kisses it on the beak, and I put it away before moving on to the next. Evie's much less shy about giving me kisses now, but her favorite person to kiss is still her Daddy. I'm actually really glad that she has her own room now so that I can kiss her Daddy after her bedtime without hearing a small giggle and looking up to see her peering over the edge of her bed with a knowing and mischievous grin plastered across her little face. I've started teaching her how to blow kisses, and she's made excellent progress, but it's still hard for her. She gets it right about 60% of the time, and that's after lots of prompting and demonstration. But she really is getting better; she doesn't bop herself in the nose nearly as often anymore! I think she prefers real kisses, though, and who can blame her?