Update

Brian's gone to L.A. for a conference for the next four days (he'll be home very early in the morning on Halloween), and so I'm here in a quiet house, enjoying a glass of red wine and updating the blog. I haven't written a "what's Maia up to now?" kind of post in a while, so perhaps I'll do a bullet list of sorts to organize my thoughts.

• She's regularly speaking in multi-word sentences, which is really adorable and awesome. For example, just this evening, as I was explaining that Daddy was gone for a few days and that the week was going to be a bit unusual, she said, "Nana and Papa both coming Monday!" (Actually, that's not the case: Nana is, but Papa will be here on Thursday as usual.) I know that Brian had explained already that Nana was going to visit on Monday to spend time with Maia in the evening while I teach my class. I'm certain that Maia has no idea what "Monday" means, but she generated the rest of that sentence on her own and wasn't just mimicing language. Another recent multi-word sentence: "Dada all done with apple fritter." (At the Farmer's Market on Saturday.)
• She's doing this thing lately where she's falling on purpose, and always says "fall off horse!" I'm guessing that the idea of falling off a horse came from one of her horse books. It's a funny behavior, really: she'll drop to her knees first, then dramatically flop her torso forward and her hands onto the ground. In the end, she winds up belly-down on the floor with her legs stretched out. It's all very Drama Queen of her. :)
• Maia's become very fond of "naked baby" time. It's generally a morning thing; after her first diaper change of the day, she'll run around a bit with just a diaper on, and then eventually find a way to take that off, too. This morning she was doing laps around the center staircase area of our house, just Maia and her little bare behind.
• The phrases we're hearing 100 times a day: "Maia do it!" and "What's that?" We've begun to insist on a "please" at the end of some of her most pointed demands, such as "Mama do it, please," "Down, please," and "More, please." It seems to be working; she gave me a spontaneous "Water, please" and "Nook-uh (nurse), please" this evening.
• She greatly impressed a lady in line at the grocery store today when she pointed out Barack Obama and John McCain on the cover of Time magazine by name. She then proceeded to ask me to identify--with a "Who's that?"--the other two people pictured: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
• Something else that I want to remember: the funny way she runs. It's really just a very quick walk, at this point, but the funny part is her left arm. She crooks it at the elbow, holds it out sideways, and brings it backwards with each stride. It's almost like she's doing a train engine motion with one arm, while the other one is held loosely at her side. It's very strange looking. :)

Finally, here's Maia in her Halloween costume (Olivia the pig):

From Zingerman's Halloween