What Has Possessed Me?

Here's a brief run-down of things going on w/ Avery:

• We've finally taken the side-rail off of Avery's crib and she's entering her 2nd week of sleeping in it w/out rolling off. Given our previous experience and her roll-bounces underneath her crib, paranoia (namely mine) put sofa cushions on the floor the 1st week. The best part of it all is her getting herself out of bed and announcing to us that she's awake: "I wake up Mommy!". I think it may FINALLY be time for a twin or full size bed.
• Her favorite phrase: "This is ridicu-wus!"
• We've graduated from diapers to Pull-ups in an effort to encourage the potty training. We're told she uses the potty regularly at daycare, but we've regressed in the progress we'd previously made at home. We ask if she needs to go, she replies, "No, thank you". It seems like forever since we've used the potty at home. We're nowing trying Mindy's method and setting an egg timer every 15 minutes. You don't realize how quickly 15 minutes passes until you have a timer go off; it's borderline annoying, but if it helps...
• We're trying, w/ little success, to get Avery to try more foods, meat in particular. Anything resembling a chicken nugget or sausage will always go over well. Even pepperoni on pizza, but if it has ground beef, ground turkey, un-breaded chicken or pork in it, around it or near it, it's not happening. We're now resorting to serving her dinner in individual servings (meat first, then veggie, carb last), to get her to eat what we want her to eat before she gets and inhales what she really wants. Broccoli is still a fist-full-in-the-mouth favorite.
• We have the most polite and well-mannered kid I know. She always says 'Please' and 'Thank You' (w/out reminding). Shake her hand and she'll say "Nice to meet you." And she's still free with the hugs and kisses. She even asks for kisses and hugs. It's so sweet.
• Her favorite songs (that she wants to here OVER and OVER again), Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and Lady GaGa's "Just Dance". Jimmy even swears the Beastie Boys are often requested too. And she still LOVES to dance. My kid can keep a beat, it's awesome!
• She's obsessed w/ talking on the phone. Especially a cell phone. She has one of my old phones and spoke on it this morning the entire way to daycare. Things she said, " Yeah? Ok. You fall down? I kiss it and make it bedda."
• She loves to help, be it w/ laundry, throwing things in the trash, and even cooking and dishes. The worst part (IMHO) is the pushing her chair to the counter or sink to help/see. This usually means she's making a watery mess in the sink or dropping whole eggs into my cake batter, but she means well. Tell her no chair and you've got a teary breakdown on your hands.
• She has been increasingly fussy lately; waterfalls at the drop of a hat. It's amusing and annoying at the same time. It usually happens because we've said 'No' to something and we're fearful of the puking issues we've had in the past. Thankfully, it hasn't resulted in any of that.

I think that's about all the excitement we've got going on right now.

She eats like a big girl. Seated at the table and using normal forks and spoons. A first this weekend was cereal in a bowl w/ milk in it. Surprisingly the mess was pretty minimal. Well, that is until she picked up the bowl to drink the milk from it. It had a lip on it, so most ended up on her shirt, but she did figure it out eventually.

An old pro.