Samantha went to the Boston aquarium again today. She really loves watching the penguins, and she was completely fascinated by the sea turtles in the big ocean tank. She kept wanting to run from window to window to see where they were swimming next.

She's really adorable at times. There was a point at which two of the turtles bumped into each other while swimming. Samantha, seeing this, cried out "Oh no! Boo-boo!"

We got her a little stuffed turtle at the gift shop, but unfortunately she dropped it somewhere while we were shopping for a new DVD player on the way home (ours having given up the ghost this morning). Neither Amy nor I saw where she dropped it, and although we looked everywhere after we noticed it missing, we couldn't find it.

The new words come fast and furious, and her sentences are becoming longer and much more complex. She calls the teddy bear that's bigger than she is the "big heavy bear", and the other night when I was trying to put her to bed she insisted on bringing one of the smaller bears with her. She laid it face down on her pillow -- "pillow" and "blanket" are new words -- and said "Bear lie down now, go sleep."

She's also started saying please and the occasional thank you, and really, how can you resist when the world's most adorable almost-two-year-old looks at you and says "Please fire" to ask you to build a fire, or "Pick up, please" to ask you to pick her up. This afternoon at nap time she brought one of her stuffed monkeys into bed, then held it up and said "boo boo". So I kissed the top of the monkey's head, after which she took it back with a very sweet "Thank you, daddy" and lay down with it in her arms.

She definitely has her moments, this kid.