Bazinga Update

Bazinga is now 22 months old and wears size 3T clothes and size 8 shoes.  At her 18 month checkup, she was the size of the average 27 month old.  Mom weighed her last week and she was 30 pounds.

She now answers, "Yeah," to questions, sometimes very enthusiastically.  Sid the Science Kid is still her favorite show, and she can identify "Id" (Sid), May, "Arrow" (Gerald), and "Eee" (Teacher Susie or Zeke, depending on who's onscreen).  Gabriella is "Uhuhuh."  Sesame Street is a close second, with Elmo as her favorite character.  She really likes the "Elmo's World" segment, but they just dropped that for "Elmo: The Musical."  That's okay with me!

All birds are ducks, and all ducks say, "Duck duck."  The alphabet song is a series of rhythmic grunts.  Occasionally she'll identify a letter, but I think it's usually a lucky guess.  She doesn't do it consistently.

We got a swingset with a fort attached from Craigslist.  The fort portion is about four feet up, and Bazinga can get up both the ladder and the climbing wall all by herself.  She likes to send things down the slide before she goes.  She also enjoys playing with bubbles in the fort.  Sometimes the wind will catch the wand just right and blow them for her, but other times she blows on it herself, with mixed results.  And sometimes she just shoves the wand in mommy's face.

She knows that granny lives two doors down, and sometimes she'll just take off in that direction while we're playing outside.  If I go with her, she'll walk the entire way on her own.  She likes to come up to mommy & daddy with her arms up and ask, "Ho?"  (Hold).  She'll let us hold her for two seconds and then she wants down to go play for two more minutes before the next hold request.

She's figured out how to put the big chunky puzzles together without twisting the pieces.  She has a jigsaw puzzle, but Max keeps eating the pieces.  She also loves to brush her teeth.  Okay, she mainly sucks the toothpaste off and chews on the brush, but I figure that has to help some.  She tries to spit sometimes, but it's mainly just leaning over and saying, "Buh."

Scotch Chocolate Cake Recipe

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup shortening
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Icing Ingredients:
1 stick butter
6 tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 box (16 oz) powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Cake Directions:
Grease & flour a 9x13 pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour & sugar in large bowl.  In a saucepan, bring to a boil the butter, shortening, cocoa, and water.  Pour this mixture over the flour & sugar.  Mix in buttermilk,  baking soda, cinnamon, vanilla, and eggs.  Pour into pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until done.

Icing Directions:
Five minutes before the cake is done, put the powdered sugar in a large bowl.  In a saucepan, bring to a boil the butter, milk, and cocoa.  Pour this mixture over the powdered sugar.  Mix in the vanilla.  Spread the icing over the hot cake.