Our Canis lupus familiari

Before Miss A, the baby of the household was our sweet shepherd, Magnus. Who knows what kind of "crazy dog people" we might have become if God hadn't given us Miss A to fuss over all the time. I would probably be trying to dress him up in costumes and clothes and maybe even coordinating his collars and leashes to match our outfits! Perhaps we would be the type of folks who wore clothing of our dog's likeness and hung out with other people who were "shepherd people" too!!

Anyway, once Miss A arrived, Magnus has kind of taken a backseat to her. I mean, we still love him and fuss over him but it's hard for him to be the center of attention when you've got Miss A doing cool things like spontaneous dancing (see the last posting for video of this).

As it turns out, Miss A has decided that Magnus is one of her best buddies. She LOVES to cuddle up to him, pet him, follow him around, and talk to him. Within the last few weeks she even learned how to say his name instead of just referring to him as "dog."

Miss A definitely can't get enough of him sometimes! He (obviously) loves her but usually just tolerates her way of loving him in return. :)

Dancin' queen

Is there anything quite like when someone just breaks out an busts a move with no care in the world? If you ask Miss A, she thinks you should ALWAYS dance like no one is watching...

Life with a toddler

The one thing that people told us before we had Miss A was that she would change everything for us. Life would be completely different with her. Nothing would ever be the same! Now that Miss A is here and definitely the center of our lives, we can agree that this is the absolute truth. The thing that nobody ever told us though is that the changes that Miss A has made in our life also changes constantly and almost daily at that! Confusing? Yes! Try living it like we are! These days there is no telling what Miss A will do.

A couple of weeks ago, household management was so much easier for us. We could divide our time between looking after Miss A, while she was in the living room, and cooking dinner in the kitchen. Nowadays? You pretty much can't leave Miss A anywhere unattended. And if you look away from her for even a second? She literally disappears and we have to go and find her! AND(!) at times it's so far from easy to do so.

Last week D was home all by himself with Miss A. While he was doing something, she skittered away and D almost couldn't find her. He looked everywhere for her and she was literally gone. You want to know how she was discovered? Well, because he heard her giggling to herself. And the giggling was coming from under the bed in our room!!!! That's right. Miss A has already learned the game of hide-and-seek!

Thankfully, she's already abandoned impromptu games of hide-and-seek since (I suppose) her toddler-sized attention span is bored with it already. Her new thing is expanding her vocabulary. Everyday there's not just a new word but at least half a dozen new words! Granted, she's still learning the meanings of things and is just echoing things most of the time but still - she's quickly moving away from just babbling for the sake of babbling.

Here is a list of some of the things that she has said and/or repeated and definitely knows so far:

1. Mama
2. Papa
3. Bow - our cat
4. Dog
5. Puppy
6. PopPop
7. Nana
8. No
9. Book
10. Amen
11. Yeah
12. Wow
13. Yay
14. Baby
15. Cooperate
16. Sit down
17. Mickey Mouse
18. Hello
19. Hi
20. Hug
21. Bye-bye/Bye
22. Nigh-night
23. Car
24. Juice
25. More

And though this seems like quite a list already, I know that it's not exhaustive and doesn't include the things that she knows/says for sure or the things that she will definitely say today, tomorrow, and the rest of the week.

Another thing that she is doing is understanding more of what we are saying to her. Last evening I gave her a three-step direction to go someplace and get something and then return to me. She took the directions and did them - without hesitation or obvious misunderstanding or confusion! It was truly amazing! And though she is still doing silly and crazy things like playing in the dog's food and water bowls and trying to put various things in her mouth, she's openly expressing her own curiosities with one word questioning or body language. Things like, "Where's Papa?" or "I don't know" are illustrated with both hands and arms out or even a little bit of a shrug to punctuate things.

Miss A keeps D and I on our toes these days not just because we're trying to keep track of her mess making and trouble finding but more because we cannot wait to see what she's going to do or say next. Miss A is absolutely amazing. And being parents is so much more than what everyone ever said it would be because of it.

Her father's daughter, for sure

One of my favorite things in the world is when you can look at people and tell where they picked up certain traits or characteristics. Things like, "She has her dad's smile!" or, "He laughs just like his mother," are things that are just priceless to me.

When it comes to Miss A, there's no mistaking that she's the product of both D and me together. When she was first born she looked EXACTLY like D when he was a newborn baby. The resemblance was so exact that you could actually hold of pictures of them side-by-side and they looked like twins! It was truly amazing. As time has passed though, she's really moved more in the direction of me. People have commented and said that she really does look like a miniature version of me and at times when I am holding her and actually looking in a mirror with her, I can't dispute their claims.

Still, she very much does maintain a resemblance to D. She's got his hair for sure and a little bit of his nose but the thing that she has even more of him - that seems to trump everything that she has of me sometimes - is that she has his facial expressions. D, as many of you all who have never met him before, is... let's just say... a man of "many faces." In other words he can be an incredible goofball sometimes in how silly he can get and how many characters he does imitations of!

Here is visual evidence to support my claim. The other day, Miss A put her lunch in her hair and though she looks a little mad about it, she was actually laughing hysterically...

And then there was her the other day when she was toddling about the house. Her new thing - which is actually an old thing if you can recall the "squinchy face" from long ago - is making this face when she gets really really excited. I would love to get this on video but unfortunately my video taking ability is limited as I need a better video camera where you can see much better detail of her facial expression and here when she snorts while she makes this face...

Oh sweet little Miss A! Such a joy and a hoot and a half to have around!

Somebody stop me - PLEASE!!!

Look, I'm not one to be all trying' to toot my own horn about most stuff but TOOT-TOOT!!! And thankyouverymuch!!!

And now to address the FAQs...

• No - I did not use a pattern.
• No - I do not plan on trying to figure out what the pattern is so I can sell it.
• No - I will not be selling this one and I have still not opened up an Etsy store yet.
• No - This is not for Miss A.
• Yes - I do realize that spots would make this more Giraffe-like.
• Yes - The mane (specifically) did take a long time to do but doing it during a Rachel Zoe marathon made it that much more bearable. So, in the words of Rachel herself - It was Bah-NAN-Nas!
• No - I do not know how much time I actually devoted to this one. But it is worth noting that my forearms ache from all of the stitching and crocheting and this is definitely the one of the 22 finished objects that I've made that I'm most proud of.
• No - I have not cross-posted this on StuffSheMakes as that has become a now-completely-abandoned blog that I'm not sure what I will do with in the meanwhile.

And now for the backstory to answer all of the questions not addressed above!

My new job came along with a wonderful opportunity and responsibility for youth ministry. Every week I get to meet with a group of 12 young ladies (9th-11th graders) and mentor them. During our mentoring time, we get to step beyond the normal classroom/student-teacher relationship and really "bond" (for lack of better verbage) with one another. We discuss hard hitting issues as well as share our journeys of faith and challenges of living a seriously focused Christian lifestyle. It's really been an amazing experience for me as a mentor and I absolutely love the girls that I've been assigned to mentor.

When I first got to meet my girls, I had them answer some getting-to-know-you questions so that I could better understand who they were as individuals. One of the bits of info that they offered up was identifying their favorite color and favorite animal. Early on I decided to use this information to do what I know best (creating and crocheting) to make each of them a special memento for them to remember this year's mentoring experience. Including this giraffe, I've done a Jack Russell terrier (from a pattern - and I was only just satisfied with the finished product) with a satin dog collar. I've got 10 more animals to do through to the end of the year and by the end of the year every girl will have received a uniquely created animal (that also features their favorite color in some way) as close to their birthday as possible.

And that's it! This giraffe was intended to be much more cartoony in design and "feel" but it ended up taking on a much more realistic quality than I originally intended. I think it was because after spending so much time looking at real pictures of baby giraffes, I couldn't not end up in that direction anyway. Also, I almost "frogged" this part way through when the body and legs just wouldn't work out together and I had to go (almost completely) back to the proverbially drawing board to figure out how to fix it. Thankfully(!) my WONDERFUL husband, D, helped me to figure out what could be done to make it work and looking at the final result? I've finally impressed myself enough to not be able to NOT toot my own horn!

Only problem now? I've raised the bar on myself significantly! Who knows where this whole endeavor will end up by the end of the year when I'm done!