Maika tries to sing along to our Music together class music in the car. She sings syllables like "ta ta" for the song kobuta tanuki neko. She also manages to get the vowel sounds right for the last word in a melody line.

She will "ask" for a bottle by getting my attention and then running out to the kitchen and pointing at the place where we keep her bottles.

For the last few days, whenever we turned the corner into Naoto's work parking lot, she says "da da da da."

She really seems to be a daddy's girl, much more than mia was at this age (or even since.) She often cries if I try to put her to sleep at night if Naoto is around, and only calms once he takes her in his arms.

She is overjoyed to see him when he gets home and sometimes cries if he goes out on an errand on saturday or sunday (like she knows he is supposed to be home) but never cries when he goes to work.

I can say to Maika "go get a book" or "time to change your diaper" or "do you want a bottle?" or "let's go pick up daddy" and she will get a book, get a diaper and lie down, run to the kitchen, or go try to put her shoes on.

On the other hand, she hates shoes. We are on her 4th pair of shoes already because she keeps sneakily taking them off when she's in the stroller and dropping one on the ground when mommy isn't looking.

She is beginning to be a little more finicky about what she eats, and definitely wants to do it herself. If mommy even "helps" a little by nudging food onto her spoon she will shake it off with exasperation and then keep trying herself.

She randomly seems to be warm to strangers. When I was walking around with the handyman at our new house, after about 40 minutes she ran over to him and inserted herself between his legs and hugged him. After clinging to me through 2 whole music together classes, during a free dance period she pushed off from me and stuck her hand out to the teacher and "ordered" her to dance with her. When I tried to cut in she pushed me away.

very interesting little girl, our mikey.