pretend-o-bo

Jen: What do you like to pretend?
Claire: I like to pretend that my name is Charlie. (pause) Tell me a story about Charlie when he was a little boy.
Jen: Charlie liked to swim. He loved to dive to the bottom of the pond with no goggles to look for smooth stones. He would grab them and take them to shore and skip them across the pond.
Claire: Tell me the story about Charlie and the wolf.

Yesterday Emily said, "This is Mama's book." and, "That is my shoe." It is so fun and amazing to observe a child acquiring language.

pre-school activities

Emily's communications are getting more and more sophisticated. It is not uncommon for her to use 3 word phrases and she has been known to mimic 4 word sentences. The two word sentence is the most common ie: Sissy sad. Dolly sleeping. More bread. Mommy back (which means come back). Daddy work. Emily happy. Mommy dress. Big shoes. She and Claire have been playing together more and more lately. Claire likes to quiz her and tells her, "Say doctor, say spider, say monkey..." Emily is only too happy to repeat the requested words. Lately Claire has been heard to say to Emily, "Emily do you want to do couch time with sissy?" "Do you want to go swimming with sissy?"

Pre-school activities have mostly consisted of learning Spanish rhymes and numbers while jumping on the ball as well as counting by twos in English and working on counting 14-20 one of which always gets skipped. We also do an alphabet song in which she supplies a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet and we do rhyming. In addition we do dexterity work like sewing kits, puzzles, drawing with markers and chalk, or other craft projects. We also do a couple baking sessions--- She has recently become much more competent at stirring dough and she likes to name each of the ingredients when I ask her what I should get out in order to make muffins or scones. We sometimes do a card game or board game too. She is getting much better at taking turns, but sometimes dilly dallies when it is her turn We check out library books and read from our own collection including Bible stories and her Ladybug and High Five magazines. We also have a digital clock made from card stock which we talk about and she likes to manipulate the dials and aks waht time it is. We try to go to play group two days a week but she still doesn't play with the other kids very much. I think part of it is that she doesn't have the mental picture for some of the things they pretend since she doesn't watch TV. Friday they were pretending to be pegasus and unicorns or sometimes it's some specific Disney princess etc. At other times she is more interested in checking out their toys than playing with the kids. (Maybe we should start reading fairy tales.) The one thing we try to do 5 days a week is have a 45 minute quiet time while Emily is napping.
This makes it sound like we do a lot but we cover this in a two week time period.

We have had to change our rain gear for swim wear this week. I moved the inflateable pool outside and filled it with water after seeing that yesterday would turn into the third 80-90 degree day in a row. The girls had a blast splashing around yesterday. They had their swim shirts on and sunscreen but Claire got a little pink on her arm and it became itchy. After spending some time in the shade eating popsicles playing in the sand box and the bean box the pool was in shade and the went back to splashing. We finished up with an oatmeal bath and early to bed.

Today Claire is at the zoo with Linda. I took a nap when Emily napped. Then I got a few chores done. When Emily awoke, we dressed a bunch of dollies and stuffed toys. Right now she is collecting small items from various rooms and putting them into a Christmasy gift bag.

I am trying to teach Emily how to sit quietly and how to whisper. I wish I had started this sooner. Church has suddenly become increasingly difficult. Emily wants to be constantly talking and/or moving. Claire thinks she can be noisy because Emily is noisy. I think Mark and I are going to try the divide and conquer technique. Each of us sits with one of them in separate pews. Any other tips?

pretend play

Emily was just rocking her dolly in our extra infant car seat and singing part of Row Row row your boat to her after she covered her with a little blanket.

A bit ago she has fun trying on my sandal and clomping around. Yesterday she held my cell phone to her ear and said,
"hello, hello."

Emily had also discovered the joys of pockets...when she runs out of room in her pocket she stuffs her onesie full of interesting objects...magnet letters, blocks etc.

sticky finger

Check out the new photos. (Small box on right)

Emily devised a new way of picking up Cheerios.
she licks her finger and touches a Cheeerio which sticks her wet finger then she pops it in her mouth and repeats the process.
She loves playing peek-a-boo and will initiate by covering her face with her hands.

the list

This weekend we read Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad story, "A List." Then, at Church, Claire asked, "Where are we going next?" Dad ambitiously replied, "the mountains." Hours later, Claire and Dad were doodling with pencil and paper. Claire was heard to mutter, "On my list:
-brush teeth
-go to the mountains
-take a walk with dad
-go to bed:"

food

We went to farmer's market yesterday for the first time in a while. We are enjoying our first strawberries of the season. My favorite way to enjoy them is on toast with peanut butter. We also enjoyed our fist summer squash of the season sauteed with olive oil and thyme.

zoo day

Claire says, "Hi. I went to the zoo yesterday. I liked the giraffes and the flamingos."

My favorite part was the gorillas. We got to watch a young gorilla named Glenda interacting with a group of 5 and six year old boys. She would run back and forth and make noise and put her mouth on the glass and smack the glass with her hand. She was very playful and the boys were running back and forth with her laughing and talking to her.

Claire is gaining weight and enjoying hearty dinners on a regular basis. She is up to 27 lbs.

Emily in toddling around with confidence. She didn't want to hold my hand at the zoo yesterday and did quite a bit of walking. (Grandpa and I carried her some too.)