We just got back from the conference that Keith has been busy organizing, planning, and preparing for, The Spring Experience (aka "TSE" for those in the know). I've also been busy getting ready for the conference because I helped with a lot of the swag and other organizational stuff. Also, we had most of the North America group of Interface21 (Keith's company) and a couple of others from Europe coming to Melbourne for a couple of days before the conference for a BBQ and a trip to Islands of Adventure. I had all of that to prepare for on top of everything else. It was well worth it though and lots of fun to hang out with Keith's collegues and their "others". I really enjoy meeting the people in the Java/Spring world that I hear Keith talk about all of the time, and have always found everyone to be so friendly. One of the things that I like most about Keith's job is that he works with people from all over the world so we get to meet so many different people (and even travel to see them occasionally) and I love comparing customs, terminology, and just learning new things about other cultures in general. There's always more to learn both about one another and about other cultures. Speaking of that...
Juergen and Eva (Juergen is one of Keith's collegues from Austria) have been staying with us since TSE. Most American's probably don't know this, but even though "The Sound of Music" is set in Austria (we even visited some of the spots in the movie when we went to Austria last year), most Austrians and even Germans haven't even heard of the movie, much less seen it. Thanks to us, Juergen and Eva no longer fall into that category! We watched "The Sound of Music" in 2 parts over the past 2 nights. It was funny the things that they noticed about it like the fact that they are driving on the "wrong" side of the road (the UK is the only country in Europe that actually drives on the left) and that the characters all speak in English but with a British accent (as Juergen pointed out, probably to "Europe-ize" it for Americans). Also, they laughed about "schnitzel with noodles" because they said that no one eats noodles with schnitzel. Funny stuff.
On top of just enjoying the company, a perk of having people visit is that we've had an excuse to do "touristy" stuff that we don't do because we live here. After TSE, Juergen & Eva and the three Donalds stayed in south Florida for a couple of days. We hung out in Downtown Miami, stayed the night in the Art Deco district (South Beach), and drove to the everglades to the "Billie Swamp Safari". Then today, I actually went to the Kennedy Space Center. Juergen & Eva wanted to go so Belle and I took them. Until today, I've actually never been on the tour there... only seen an IMAX movie there.
Since it's been a while since I've blogged, it's also been a while since I've given a Belle update...
Not that I'm biased, but she is SOOO smart! She picks up things that I show or tell her so fast now. She's up to 11 "signs" (more, all done, food, milk, fan, light, hi/bye, brush teeth, ball, dog, birdy) and 6 spoken words that she'll say on her own without prompting (da-da, hi, moo, cat, dog, and uh-oh). The latest signs, ball and dog, have especially impressed me because of how she picked them up. When we were at TSE, I used a stress ball to occupy her during the keynote one night and I signed "ball" to her a couple of times while playing. Then the next night, as soon as she spotted another stress ball, she started signing "ball" and she did it again when she saw Keith holding one in the hotel room. She didn't do it when I first showed her, but then the next day... bam.. there it is! :) And "dog" was even more impressive... while we were gone for the week, Macy (our dog) stayed with a friend. I went to pick her up last night and when Macy came in the room, Annabelle immediately started signing "dog"! The amazing thing is that isn't one that I sign often and I haven't even done it for a couple of weeks! This just proves that even if you don't see it right away, their little brains are sponges just soaking up all kinds of stuff... hopefully most of it good. :)
As far as the spoken words go, seeing as how she's only 10 months old, these aren't spoken totally clearly. In fact, most people probably wouldn't even recognize some of her words. We can hear the words clear as day though. "Da-da" is pretty obvious (except that she chants it sometimes when daddy isn't even around, but she also clearly uses it to call for him too), and someone else even pointed out that she was saying "hi" to me. If I have my back turned and she says "cat", I know that she either sees one of our cats or sees one in a book or something. Dog is VERY unclear and she just started saying "woof" tonight so I'm not sure if that one will stick (she's said other words like "shoe" or "quack-quack" over and over again one day then neve says them again... maybe "woof" will be like that). "Uh-oh" is pretty commonly said, but sometimes it comes out backwards ("oh-uh" or "oh-oh" or "uh-uh"). She says "moo" for cow because I taught her "moo cow" instead of just cow since cow is close to cat in sound.
Annabelle also seems to be understanding me very well. She will sometimes sit down when I tell her to (the other times she seems to just not want to sit at the time) and we started this awesome thing today where I say "I'm so cute!" and she tilts her head and gives this look like she's the one who's saying "I'm so cute!" She was actually already doing the "look" part of it, and I added the narration and she picked up on it. It's SOOO cute! She has started dancing to music or dancing when I just tell her to. She gives kisses when asked (unless she just doesn't want to). She LOVES to throw the ball (or anything for that matter).
Even at this young age, Bellee seems to be such an independent little girl. She is already wanting to feed herself with a spoon, prefers to finger-food feed herself and even wants to get the food out of the packages herself, prefers to crawl on her own rather than being carried, she doesn't like to cuddle or even sit on someone's lap, she's good at drinking out of a sippy cup with no help now and wants to drink out of adult drink bottles whenever she sees one (she drinks from a straw with no problem too... a lifesaver at restaurants when I forget her sippy cup), and she even reads books on her own sometimes rather than having me read them to her. And I'm sure there's more.
I'm still breastfeeding, but have started giving Annabelle whole milk occasionally. It's good to have the whole milk to satisfy her milk craving when we're in public. She still doesn't really care for a bottle, so I give her the milk in a sippy cup. My milk supply seems to be depleating, but it doesn't seem to bother her. I'm still planning to stick with breastfeeding until Belle's 12 months, so we'll see. After 12 months of breastfeeding, it will be so weird to not do it. I haven't known life with Annabelle any other way! That's so crazy to me (but not nearly as crazy as the fact that she's almost a year old!)!
P.S. Pictures coming soon... some are uploaded, I just need to add the captions.
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