Allison

Lots of Words, But Still a Skinny Bean

We took Allison to her 15 month checkup today. As expected, she grew lengthwise – 2 whole inches over 3 months – to maintain her 25-50% in height. But, she’s now less than 3% in weight – not even on the weight chart for her height – at 18 lbs. 4 oz. Is her doctor concerned? No – because apparently Katherine had a similar “S” curve, although Katherine always was on the chart.

Allison was pretty tired to begin with, and she got even more crabby during the checkup. She wailed on the scale and kept indicating that she wanted to leave the checkup room. After the nurse measured her and her doctor poked, prodded and inspected her, the nurse came back to give two immunizations. Lots of crying and big tears until we reached the minivan. She cheered up at dinner (Mongolian Grill), toddled around the nearby mall, and demanded ice cream from Dad and Katherine after they left Coldstone.

On the other hand, Katherine was very cheerful during the checkup. She sat criss cross applesauce on the checkup table, saying “maybe Allison will get shots, maybe not…” She seemed pretty fired up when the nurse said that Allison would get two shots. During the checkup, I told the doctor that Allison really tried to keep up with Katherine who then exclaimed, “She’s not as fast as me because I’m older and bigger!”

Allison is a funny little girl. She loves to ride her red wagon, trying to climb into it and demanding “Ri…Ri.” She also likes to watch Katherine pedal around the driveway in her trike. If Katherine goes slowly enough, Allison grabs on to the push bar and walks after the trike as if pushing it along.

On the Silly Sally front, the book continues to wear and tear. Allison now says, “Sihlleee Saalll” telling us when she wants us to help her find her book. When we get to the middle of the book, she exclaims “Bbbuuu” for Neddy Buttercup. She often babbles while flipping pages, as if telling us the story. We’re going to have to buy at least another copy, so we have one upstairs and one downstairs copy.

Saaaahhhlleee

What is Allison saying? Morning, noon and at bedtime we hear her talking about Silly Sally – the name of Allison’s favorite book. She carries the book around the house and often dumps it in our lap. Sometimes frustrated, she says, “reee,” telling us to start reading the book! Silly Sally is seeing some real wear and tear, but thankfully we know where to buy replacement copies. It’s probably the closest thing that Allison has to a Lambey.

Her other favorite book is Carl. Because she has a harder time saying Carl, she makes a smacking sound and points at the book to let me know that she wants to read Carl’s Masquerade before bed. I tell her in Spanish to give Carl and kiss, she presses the book to her face, and gives me a big smile as if to say, “I know he’s not real, but I’ll pretend to kiss him anyway.”

Other new Allison words:

– “Yea” for yes or yeah
– “Ceeral” for cereal (she’s very close to saying the full word!)

Garage Sale

For the last four days, we prepped and held a garage sale at our house with four other families. As I told Steve, I’ve never worked harder for $250. We figured between me and Steve, we probably made less than minimum wage every hour we worked. 🙂

The first two days we spent deciding what to sell, cleaning up merchandise, aggregating it in the living room, making room for everything in the garage, moving it to the garage, labeling and pricing it. The last two days we actually held the garage sale, merchandising stuff on the driveway, talking with “customers” and closing “deals.” (e.g. getting rid of junk)

Aside from a really hot two days on the driveway selling previously expensive stuff for very low prices, we managed to free ourselves of some legacy items. The garage and other parts of the house look less cluttered. And, we’re both happy that the other person finally got rid of specific items, e.g. 10 year old red blanket, semi-working boom box, old speakers, toolbox, skis, mountain bike etc. Funny enough, one man asked whether Steve’s old kitchen table was for sale – since we were displaying kids clothes on it. But, it wasn’t for sale! I figure we’ll have this table in our garage for the next 20 years.

Katherine reveled in three days of playing with friends and hanging out with a nine year old friend down the street. Allison managed to only get knocked down twice on the driveway. Allison loved to poke into various items including popsicle holders, a glass vase, brownies and lots of kids toys and books.

We wrapped things up with a trip to Goodwill today.

Farm Experience

We’ve really enjoyed our first half of August. It’s gone by in the blink of an ….eye. Each day we’ve tried to keep the kids active whether at a local park or some sort of children’s attraction.

Last week we joined the Root Connection – a local organic farmers coop. The concept is very straightforward. Pay upfront and then pickup your produce once a week. The farm volunteers dole out large portions of different vegetables, which you dutifully put in a bag or box to take home. Last week we picked up lettuce (2 kinds), lots of beets (yum!), carrots, small tomatoes, pole beans, bok choy, zucchini, squash, and more. We also wandered thru the u-pick area for basil, pole beans, rainbow chard and sunflowers.

The kids were on fire from the time they stepped into the parking lot. Literally. The lot has crushed, colored rocks which the girls picked up, fingered and played with. Allison kept returning to the pathway to exclaim, “ra!!” and play with rocks. Katherine talked about taking rocks home, but we put a kibosh on that.

Anyway, once we actually got to picking pole beans their focus changed. Katherine crawled thru the bean plants to pick and eat them. Allison managed to chew through four long beans – two handed! Katherine “helped” Dad cut the basil and chard.

As you can imagine, we’re slowly but surely mowing thru the veggies. Kids can’t wait for this Friday when we go again. We’ve learned our key lessons: bring kid-friendly scissors, plastic bags and socks/sneakers.

Bubbles and Sand

Last Thursday we had another first for us – taking the kids to a summer beach-type festival at the Pacific Science Center. I’ll have to post the pictures because they are just priceless. The key attraction: beautiful sculpting sand for the kids to play with and big vats of bubbles with wands. The other attraction which the girls did not appreciate was the rocket scientist who was finishing her show as we arrived. Essentially she used all sorts of interesting materials – say liquid nitrogen – and doing fun things with them. For instance, she put liquid nitrogen in a plastic soda bottle and dropped it in a barrel of water. What happened? A big boom and whoosh of water everyone. Katherine was not amused.

Katherine did end up waist deep in the sand, enthusiastically digging sand with her friend Sid. Allison first cried when plopped in the sand; this evolved into a quiet, sad looking face as she suffered in silence. That said, Allison loved the liquid Dawn and bubble wands. 🙂

Is Madeleine going to be there?

For anyone who’s read to Katherine at bedtime, you’ve probably encountered her Carl books. We first learned about Carl from some friends who gave us Carl’s Masquerade Party. Now we have just about the full collection of books about a friendly and smart rottweiler who takes care of baby Madeleine when her mom leaves Carl to “take care of the baby.” While the concept of a canine babysitter can be a bit disconcerting to adults, the books have very few words and funny, well-illustrated stories. Katherine loves to tell the stories, flipping the pages and telling them her way.

So, she was really, really excited to find out that Carl was planning to visit a shop in Seattle last Saturday. Katherine asked, several days before the event, “Where’s Carl now?” “Can we see him today?” “Will Madeleine be there?”

Saturday finally arrived. We stopped by Trilogy for a pancake breakfast with both sides of the family. Afterwards, we headed into the city to a children’s shop in Madison Park. Having arrived early, we went to the next door bakery for donuts (a real parenting highlight!), bought the 3 last Carl book we didn’t have, read the books and met other avid fans.

The 30 minute wait was well worth it. Alexandra Day signed our books – one each for Allison, Katherine and Bisco. Carl walked around the shop, enjoying the attention and ear scratching. Katherine and Allison managed to get a few pets in and we headed home with both girls exhausted after all the excitement.

More Allison Developments

Allison is still a small, skinny kid. But, she’s getting increasingly verbal. New sounds are emerging from the back of the minivan during car rides, not just the “ba, ma” and other -a sounds. It’s almost like she’s talking to us, just with words and sounds we don’t understand.

One new word for her is gwanba or baba – for Grandpa or Grandma. She is also more clearly saying her other words.

We’ve also noticed Allison interacting more and more with us. For instance, the other day I told her that she needed shoes to go in the garage. She then walked straight to the family room shelf, pointed at her shoes and said “shoo.”

She also follows direction and does what we ask. For instance, I’ll ask her to stay at the bottom of the stairs. She’ll then close the gate and look back at me to see if I’ve noticed. Or, she’ll sit back down in the her big red wagon when we ask her.

What else have we done with kids? We’ve gone on a couple bike rides, taken them to playgrounds, visited with Steve’s family and played on the driveway. Their favorite activity is riding the tricycle (Katherine) and pretending to drive the Beetle (Allison). This gets hairy when they both decide to sit in the Beetle and when they both want to play with trike. So far, it’s all managing to work out; the kids are tired but happy at the end of the day; and we’re on track for school in 3 weeks.

Omissions

I can’t believe I forgot some new Allison words. Steve, Allison and I were walking around Redmond Town Center this morning after school dropoff. Allison must have walked at least a quarter mile around the stores, stopped by every tree to check out rocks and got really excited by other kids and a water fountain. So, here are more new words…

• “Waer” – Sounds like water without the T
• “Raaa” – for rocks around the trees at the mall
• “Wa” – for walk. This is said at different volume levels, often very very loudly.
• “Baa” – when reaching or pointing to balloons

Most recent count is 20-25 words/sounds for objects, people or animals.

I also need to post pics from Sharon and Jamey’s visit after we upload them.

Reading Program & the Tipping Point

At Katherine’s teachers suggestion, we checked out the Redmond Public Library’s reading program for kids. The program consists of kids filling out a reading log – one box filled in for every 20 minutes they read or are read to by an adult. Katherine, being a very goal oriented child, grasped onto this concept and has asked us to read her books almost every spare moment when Allison is asleep. (Allison grabs books which makes it virtually impossible to read around her.) We’ve read about 5 new library books and re-read some new Arthur and Bernstairan Bear Books. She’s taken immense pride in filling out her first three squares. She even insisted on bringing her reading log to my mom’s house for their sleepover tonight!

Anyway Katherine got inspired to climb around and check out the books in our family room. Yesterday she insisted that I read one of the books she grabbed off our shelf – The Tipping Point. I told her that really…really she wouldn’t find it very interesting, and as a matter of fact, I’m not even sure I finished the book (fascinating book and very relevant to work a couple years ago, but I was time challenged back then). I did manage to (verbally) wrestle it away from her, but that was pretty amusing.

Mao-tze

Given the summer heat, we’ve been meaning to get the kids some new hats. We found the perfect ones at Janie and Jack the other day (only $10 on sale!) Katherine even swore that she’d wear it if we bought one for her. Anyway, they’re very nice straw hats with purple lining and a flower on the front…very cute and especially when both kids wear them. Allison really enjoys putting on her hat (which we call mao-tze) and likes to walk around the house with her hat perched askance on her head.

Yesterday she found her hat in our room, and proceeded to walk down the hallway with this big brimmed hat. She clearly couldn’t see anything. First she went barreling down the hallway at full speed, walked straight into a wall, bounced off the wall, and then fell directly on to her back.

I tried really hard not to laugh, but it was sooo funny. (don’t worry she didn’t get any bruises, just a hurt ego)