She had a great, albeit pretty overwhelming, birthday week, complete with lots of festivities and many batches of friends and family coming over to celebrate. We got to go to Michigan to see her Aunt Sherry, Uncle Mo and cousins Daniel and Delani a couple weeks before her birthday so we had a little pre-party with them, which she loved. She had a great time with her cousins and new friends Kiren and Vivek (she referred to Kiren as "the other one Delani" when she first met her.) It was fun to see Salome and Delani together after almost a whole year apart. They both have lots of personality and large vocabularies.
Salome got to have her Ammachi and Appachen from Florida come out for her real birthday and she regaled them with her rendition of "You Are My Sunshine". ("...you make me happy when skies are great...you'll never know dear how much I'm loving you...")
She also got a new cousin, or first-cousin-once-removed, and she is crazy about him. He looks quite a bit like she did when she was born - lots of dark hair and pretty tan skin. She loves to hold him and doesn't seem too perturbed that she isn't the baby of the family anymore. :)
She likes pretending a lot these days, i.e cooking me fake food or giving me invisible gummy bears, fake sleeping so I'll wake her up, or pretending to be different characters. ("Hey Mama, I'm Papa," or "I'm a koala bear/fireman/monkey/etc.") She's also been making up her own language and uses her new gibberish at random points during the day. (Me: "Hey Salome did you put your boots on?" Salome (looking down at her boots): "No, these are zhoodoos.")
Every day brings something new and funny...sometimes awkward, like when she points to someone who is walking mere inches or feet from us and saying loudly, "What's that guy/lady eating/doing?" It's refreshing to see how little kids don't have all the boundaries put up like adults do. Reminds us to take it easy...
