The Adventures of Anne & Charlie: September 2012

There doesn't seem to be a unifying theme to this blog post. Here is everything new in the world of Anne:

Anne cannot yet say two words in a row. Example conversation:
"Anne, can you say, 'Hi?'"
"Hi!"
"Anne, can you say, 'Daddy?'"
"Daddy!"
"Anne, can you say, 'Hi Daddy?'"
"Hi!"
A month ago I took a screwdriver and unscrewed a battery door on one of Anne's toys in order to replace the batteries. Afterward, Anne played with the screwdriver for a couple of minutes and then watched me put it away in the drawer. Fast forward one month to today. Anne has not seen the screwdriver in a month. She is playing with the toy. She sees the screws. She walks over to the drawer, takes out the screwdriver, walks back over to the toy and tries to unscrew the screws with the screwdriver. Cool eh?
Anne's favourite things:

Although Anne has not yet learned any new syllables, she has become amazingly communicative in just the past week or so. Examples:

Anne finally requests a new song by saying "ra" (as close as she can get to "song") rather than pointing at the ceiling and whining.
We finally have Anne saying "halp" (help) when she is having trouble with something
Anne says "rara" for the word "soother". She also uses "rara" for "Laura". She got pretty excited talking to Aunt Laura on speaker phone yesterday.
Anne often requests to go see her cousin Max, whom she calls "Ma".
milk = "Meh"
dog = "woof woof"

Anne can now open doors, but only lever-style handles and only if the door opens toward her
Anne can pick up and move her stool between the bed and sink. Thankfully she has not figured out how to apply the stool in general to things like the dresser or closet or night stands.
Anne loves to play in her learning tower that Grandpa B built her.
Anne all of a sudden likes to walk most of the time, rather than being carried.
A couple days ago it rained really hard and the gutters were flowing very quickly. Anne and I went outside in our raincoats and floated boats down the gutters. It was lots of fun.
A couple weeks ago we went with Grandma and Grandpa B to the zoo and saw all kinds of cool animals. Anne got to feed a giraffe and a baby lemur. It was a pretty cool day.