Home of Steve, Christine, Katherine, Ally, Rosebud, and Rex
Skip! Skip!
Katherine has decided to “teach” Allison ballet. As a result, Allison has become enamored of her little pink tutu, white sandals and sock ensemble. Ballet seems to involve both girls running around the kitchen island yelling “skip skip skip!” Katherine throws in a “tag, you’re it” for good measure and whacking me on the back when I’m making dinner.
You’ll also see some pictures from Allison and Patty’s expedition to the zoo today.
We finally did it!
Allison got her first haircut ever yesterday at the Brat Pack. After numerous inquiries from family and friends, e.g. “so…are you planning to cut her hair?” or “she needs a haircut”, I took Allison in for a little trim. Our hairdresser took about half an inch off all around, telling us it would make a big difference to get rid of the baby hair (sigh).
Katherine was inspired enough to get her hair cut as well. It took 9 months but we finally grew out her bangs. Now her hair is much easier to comb and manage…and she’s looking pretty stylish too!
All in all, the kids loved the fruit leather, the DVD player and the free lollipops afterwards (no, Allison didn’t eat hers).
Check out the Headgear
Allison has a very quirky sense of humor. Yesterday Katherine and her friend played dress up with full-on ballet gear, wings, etc. Allison decided to participate by donning pink Gymboree panties on her head and a pair of droopy pink fairy wings. She was so proud, strutting around the house in her white Stride Rite sandals.
Also to the right you can see what she did with my old business school canvas bag…
2006 Carnival
Every year for the last four years we’ve attended the Redmond Toddler Group Carnival which is held near our house. Allison goes to Ms. Ginny’s class every week, which means that we had to staff the racetrack booth this year. Steve, a total trooper, took the two hour early morning shift – helping to setup and waving flags at kids to send them down the race track in cozy coupe cars. Allison loved the race track; Katherine loved it even more despite barely fitting in the coupes.
Since Steve worked the race cars, I took the kids around the booths and activities. We hit just about every one, from fish pond to soccer to basketball and….the cake walk!! It only took three tries this year, walking around to music, but we won a gigantic blue fish cake. Katherine tore across the gymnasium to “tell Dad.” We tried the cake later that night and promptly went into sugar comas. ๐ Steve was psyched to learn that Katherine can actually shoot and make baskets (we found out that they play basketball at school during PE). He’s already thinking about a basketball hoop and soccer net on the driveway for….Katherine.
Outfitting Pinky Bear
Since the last posting, we’ve now added yet another pink bear to the family….Pinky Sarah Bush (e.g. Allison’s Pinky Bear not to be confused with Pinky Irene Bush). It became very clear that Allison really liked Katherine’s bear and that Katherine wasn’t excited about sharing her new bear with Allison, “That’s MY bear!!” To alleviate this issue, we went to the mall last weekend and applied Allison’s gift card to another pink bear. I held Allison up, showing her the different stuffed animals and asking which she wanted. She confirmed her desire for a pink bear, we waited for about 15 minutes in line for stuffing. Allison did surprise me by reaching for her own red heart from the bin to insert in the bear. Before handing it to the sales person for insertion, she held it between her palms (without any prompting) – just like the bigger kids. Then, she watched as the sales person closed up the bear, we paid for it, and Katherine lugged the large box thru the mall for her.
We told Katherine that she could choose one SMALL item from the store for her bear. She vacillated between a sparkly sweatsuit, a pair of Sketcher sneakers, a pink backpack and then a bear fake pink fabric makeup kit – eventually settling on the last item. For two days, she was in makeup heaven, applying pretend rainbows (like face painting) and such to anyone who would sit down for her. Katherine calls it playing “perfume.” Then on Day 3….tears….more tears and buyers remorse….”I really wanted the backpack, and it’s going to be ALL GONE by the time I get there next time….NO…I should have gotten Pinky a STROLLER…” This went on for at least half an hour before we figured out that we could put this to good use.
What’s the deal we struck? If Katherine could sleep in her bed, with no screaming at night, no waking us up for bathroom trips or for any other reason for FIVE straight nights, she would get ONE small item from Build-a-Bear. She wasn’t wild about this, telling us that we had to get in the car and go now to the store, but we held firm. Steve’s rationale – that five nights of uninterrupted sleep was well worth a $10 stroller at the store. Katherine’s made it through four nights, and with one more night under her belt is heading back to the store for her well-earned reward. I hope this sleeping thing sticks because we’re feeling a lot more rested than we have in a long time.
More Development Milestones
Allison continues to express herself with more and more words, saying sentences like “I read Dora book,” “May I have some?” or just “I want it!!” She becomes very obsessed with certain activities, things or events that she sees:
She’s learning her lower case alphabet thanks to an enormous wooden alphabet puzzle with both lower and upper case letters. It takes her a couple sittings to finish this puzzle, and she gets a bit confused with lower case b, d, p and q – since the pieces all look alike – but we’re making progress.
Allison’s spatial skills now extend to the wooden train puzzle (with small red pegs) that she can do easily. She can do the Lauri rubber train puzzle, but struggles with pushing the rubber pieces into place. Next step is to find our old small floor puzzles for her. I also bought a pretty cool product a couple weeks ago, called Wedgits. They’re like plastic squares that come in different colors and sizes. They can be assembled into different configurations, without requiring much finger strength, and the product really scales up for older child use too. Both kids like to play with them, in different ways though. Allison puts pieces on top of one another, takes them out, puts other pieces on top, takes them out – a very iterative process. Katherine strives to make patterns with her squares or to make objects. That all said, it’s a very cool toy.
They’re Sponges
It’s often said that of kids, and I’m a real believer. I had mentioned to my mom proudly yesterday that I thought Allison could recognize a third of the alphabet. Her response, “Oh, she knows more than that…” She does indeed. Allison knows almost all her uppercase letters, only occasionally mixing up N/H and not quite knowing E, I (“Ice Cream!”), V or X.
How did we figure this out? Katherine dug out an older toy, which consists of magnetic letters that affix to pages in a metal book. Allison got a hold of the toy today and started messing around with the letters. One by one I held up the letters and asked, “Allison what is this letter?” She’d eye the letter and then give her response. After a while, Katherine decided she wanted to play Vanna, so she held up letters for her sister to identify. Allison could identify just about all the letters correctly, even with grapes in her mouth! I guess it’s time to find those old refrigerator magnets and put them up again.
At that point, Steve arrived home to witness this exercise. He then arranged the little letters into simple 3 letter words for Katherine to sound out. He progressed to harder 4 letter words; we introduced her to the “sh” blend. Katherine was having a great time. Allison, missing the attention, grabbed random letters and yelling out their names like “O O O!” It was quite the scene at our kitchen table tonight.
Can’t Jump Josie
We have a pile of CDs in our family room, which the kids know how to insert and play in a CD player. Allison found a really old Kindermusik CD which includes a song called, “Rolling down the river.” It has lyrics, “One in the middle, can’t jump Josie (repeat)..Oh Susan Brown!” Katherine heard the song and started jumping up and down. Apparently, they learned this song at school earlier this year and have this routine where they alternate walking and jumping. Allison has taken to this song, saying “Can’t Jump…Jump Josie.” She’s gone to extraordinary lengths to get us to play the CD – putting random CDs in, pressing random buttons, pulling me into the family room, and hounding us to play the song.
New Family Member
Her name is Pinky Bear, and that’s exactly what she is. We went to Build a Bear last weekend to spend two lovely gift cards from Christmas. Katherine marched straight up to a pink bear, declared that was what she wanted, and quietly watched the whole stuffing/heart inserting process. Katherine also informed us that Pinky needed a bike helmet and purse, to go with the handful of baby clothes that I kept for doll/bear dressing purposes. Pinky has a nice set of clothes, which Katherine keeps nicely organized in her Build a Bear box and which she tries to get on and off the bear with varying degrees of success.
Did Allison get her bear? Not yet. She buzzed all around the store but wasn’t ready for the experience. She does really like Pinky, holding the bear on the way to school pickup and telling me “I can play with Pinky Bear….Pinky Bear Tickle!! Ha ha ha.”
Mother Daughter Day
Katherine and I headed over to Eton last Saturday for Mother Daughter Day. Similar to Father Daughter Day, it’s a chance for one parent to watch their child work in the classroom and see progress made. Despite fighting the last of a nasty cold, Katherine virtually bounded into the classroom. Her teacher had written down three works for her to show: Pink Reading Box, Metal Insets and Golden Bead Fetching. Steve had seen the pink reading boxes in December, and I was interested to see how Katherine laid out the 5 or 6 words with accompanying pictures. Then she had to sound out the letters and put the right picture next to the word. Katherine was on a roll until she got her lower case b and d mixed up, resulting in the word dog next to a bug picture and vice versa. Mrs. Fleming asked Katherine to sound them out; they switched the cards; Katherine put away her materials and we were finished.
The next work involved what Katherine described as metal pots and pan covers. Really, it’s just metal stencils inside of a metal surrounding base. She selected a wooden tray and placed a stencil, pencils and paper in the tray. Katherine sat down and then proceeded to trace the stencil with three colored pencils. After zipping through the work, Katherine determined that the math corner was in use, and asked Mrs. Fleming for another work. Katherine was extraordinarily busy for the next 10 or 15 minutes, doing a rock work, tracing/coloring a map of Australia, doing a practical life buckle work and putting/spilling beads on a multiplication tray. We closed the hour with Katherine showing me how she could create 1000, 600, 40 and 3 with different gold bead currencies (6×100, 4×10, etc).
Pictures Publishing
I think I might have forgotten a step in publishing the pictures, so they’ll be up later today (fingers crossed). When they are published properly, you’ll notice that the kids are growing like weeds. Katherine has shot up at least a 0.5-1.0 inch. Allison has got to be a pound or two heavier, and her face and body are filling out. Must the non-stop eating…
