A dog of her own and the pirate baby

Grace is obsessed with dogs. She can spot them a mile away on the street, proclaiming with glee "dah-do." She finds them in books, very happily turns right to the dog pages in her "touch and feel" books. The amazing thing to me is that she identifies everything from chihuahuas to bulldogs to golden retrievers as dogs, and also recognizes Manny (Manhattan, her stuffed dog) as one, too. So the other night, she was sifting through a pile of postcards and photos I haven't figured what do with yet, and she found a photo of our old dog, Scout (he now lives in dog paradise on a farm in eastern Washington). You would think we had given her a puppy, she was so delighted. She carried that photo around saying "dah-do" the rest of the evening. Scout has resumed his place of honor on the fridge. I guess that's the tiny apartment, city baby version of getting a pet.

Then, yesterday, we were at the playground. Some little boys were running around and decided that Grace, climbing on the equipment (can you believe that?!) nearby was the pirate they had to get away from. Naturally, since she is so into imitating these days, I had to teach her to say "Arrrrr!" So, she started saying it, a little more like "Ahhhh" every time they ran by. Scary, little pink pirate in her sweater, dress and leg warmers. She loved it, they loved it and their mom and I were cracking up. We'll work on "shiver me timbers" next.