She surprises me in so many ways

She has intentions?  Desires?  Apparently so.  And it surprises me when they are so obvious.  I know they will become more and more obvious as she gets older but it just makes me so happy when they are so clear (even if I don't immediately recognize them for what they are).  For example yesterday...

This morning as she was playing in her room and I was picking out her outfit she said "menemem" (or something like that).  Now, I should have known what she wanted because that's how she says banana but I thought "surely she's talking about something else in her room."  Well, she walked over to the door, pointed, and said it again.  When I asked what she wanted she said it again, opened the door, and went to the stairs.  On the way down the stairs she said it a couple more times.  At the bottom she ran across the living room, into the kitchen and pointed up at the counter to where we keep the bananas.  Hot damn!  She wanted a banana.  Seriously.  In her room she thought "hmmm, I want a banana.  I think I'll go get one."  and she did.  Crazy.

Later in the morning when I was taking her clothes out of the dryer I handed a couple to her and said "go put those in the living room and come right back.".  (We don't believe in child labor laws in our house.  :-)  )When I said this I fully expected that the clothes would end up somewhere in the kitchen and that she'd get distracted and sit down to play with some random piece of paper she found.  Nope.  She came right back where i handed her more clothes.  I did this one or two more times (I was picking hers out from Tyler's so it took me a few minutes to get everything.)  When I carried in the rest of the clothes, there, in a pile, in the living room, were all the clothes she had carried in.  Genius I tell you! 

Know what else? 
...During breakfast with dad she built towers out of creamers to keep herself occupied

...on the way home from downtown LA she sang to herself and played with her hands to keep herself awake (and didn't cry hardly at all on the hour trip home!)

,...when we walked to and from the pool for swim lessons she actually held my hand almost the whole way (this has been a battle - trying to get her to hold my hand instead of running off through the parking lot)

... when i took her to work she actually played with other people - meaning she rolled a train back and forth with them (instead of engaging in just parallel play where she plays by herself)

Granted, some of these things are things I want her to do - I want her to hold my hand when appropriate and to help with laundry and to keep herself occupied... but they are also things she wants to do and is learning how to do.  It's so awesome to see her grow up into her own person.  It's very trying because she is so headstrong but it's also very rewarding - for her as well as for me I think.  Watch out - fun times ahead!

(This was her eating that menemem she wanted so badly - doesn't look like her huh?)