Gate and stuff

I finally sucked it up and took down the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. For a little while, its presence seemed like a slight mental deterrent from Anya going upstairs -- slight, because she can scale the gate and be upstairs in about 10 seconds. But mostly it was just there to make me feel like I was doing something to keep her safe. So now it's down and I hope she doesn't do anything stupid. I haven't seen her dancing or jumping on the stairs lately, so it might be OK.

In other news, it turns out that Anya is indeed a girl. And likes to do "girl" things. I think a good chunk of this can be attributed to her hanging out with two certain 3 year olds a few times a week. Anya now loves dressing up, wearing costumes (mainly dresses and tutus) and dancing around. She now insists on picking out her clothes for the day and it inevitably consists of leggings and a dress -- sometimes a shirt if she's feeling crazy. And she also insists on dressing herself. She's gotten quite good at it ("tag goes in the back!"), and just struggles with putting on her socks on occasion. Unfortunately her clothes matching skills leave something to be desired and she's come up with many interesting combinations.

And now I have to go pick her up from the nanny share, so will update this another time...