I'm constantly telling myself to stop and blog, but then something else happens, or the phone rings, or I decide to randomly bake something, and I forget. I better start typing now because I might just get up and walk to the kitchen and start stirring tonight's pulled pork in the crockpot and then get distracted again!
Our girl has turned into a BIG girl! This week, she has decided to potty train herself. OK by me! Monday, she came home from MDO (with a dry diaper) telling me she needed to potty ("tee-tees") . So, we went, and after lots and lots of praise, she went the rest of the night telling me every time she needed to go! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeearly the next morning she woke up in a conniption fit because she had gone in her diaper in her sleep. Poor girl, she was so upset. I hate that she got so emotionally upset over that, when I've put zero pressure on her over potty training, yet when we discipline her for hitting or throwing, she just gives us her "maybe if I smile at you with this goofy mischievous grin you'll let me off the hook" look. Anyway, we went, and luckily, she eventually went back to sleep after potty time. Anyway, the week went on like that, she's had a couple of accidents here and there (especially today, maybe I've gotten lax in reminding her and asking her a bazillion times?), but mostly she is doing very, VERY good in her big girl panties! Two nights she even managed to keep her diaper dry all night, which is pretty great for our little night time milk drinker. I'm so proud of her and I guess I must be really lucky because everyone curses potty training time, but it's really not that stressful, and she's a champ! Granted, we haven't had the we're-in-the-middle-of-Target-and-she-has-to-go-but-the-bathroom-is-an-eternity-away-so-we-must-RUN moment yet, and I'm sure it's coming.
She's talking a LOT. Some of it is still hard to understand, even for me, which is frustrating for her, but her vocabulary is somewhat infinite now. She'll at least attempt to say anything and everything. It's crazy that just 2 months ago we were enrolling her in speech therapy because she had a 30-word vocabulary....on a good day! Now she's putting 2, 3 and sometimes 4 words together into phrases. I won't be surprised if we have to go back for articulation, because things just don't come out quite right sometimes, but we're going to let her get a little older and more developed before we do.
My favorite new skill: singing! She sings along with her favorite songs and it is so stinkin' precious. Although it's not very understandable, and she rarely will sing without me singing too, she's so proud of herself. Her favorites at the moment: ABC's, I'm in the Lord's Army, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Twinkle Little Star, and the songs from Tangled. She also likes to "read" her books out loud by sorta paraphrasing them. I got a video of her reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to herself and I'll try to post it here.
She knows every letter of the alphabet (upper and lower case), sings her ABC's, and knows most of the sounds that accompany each letter. She also attempts to write her letters, but right now they all look like lines, other than O which is pretty accurate :). One of her favorite shows to watch is SuperWhy, and it's one of my favorites for her because I'm pretty sure they have been more influential than me in teaching her letters and sounds. They will ask what letter makes the, for example,
sound and she will shout "P!!!!!!!!!". Pretty amazing.
She has gotten used to going to Sunday School now and very rarely gets upset when we leave her after we remind her we'll be back to pick her up to sit in church with us and Nonnie.
She's gotten very much into movies, other than Toy Story and Tangled. She loves Beauty and the Beast (after seeing it in 3D at the theater with BB and Momma), Nemo, The Little Mermaid, and she's recently watched Lion King and Peter Pan too. She even watched Dumbo when it came on TV today. She kept saying "liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttle elephant sad." The way she says little is priceless.
She's such a sensitive little thing. When we get to a sad part in a story or movie, she gets so upset. She says "sad mama. sad me. cryyyy". Even in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, a current fave, when the tree falls with all the letters, it's so upsetting to her that I often skip that page! When the Three Little Kittens lose or soil their mittens, she gets sad for them too.
She's a big helper and loves to set the table for me every evening before supper.
She loves, loves, loves to dance. She likes ballet and doesn't do it unless she has her ballet shoes and tutu on. She twirls and spins. She also likes to dance like Belle and Beast after BB showed her how. If you ask her who taught her to dance, she says Callianne, Emily, Jill, Buster and Daddy Butch. ("Na, Emmy, Jiww, Bu-ber and Butch"). I recently taught her the ballet positions, but she still doesn't credit me with teaching her to dance. And she and Stephen love to dance to LMFAO's songs, which are
She still loves to play ball and practices her golf swing constantly. We've got the next Tiger on our hands. :) She's also pretty amazing at kicking that soccer ball. She puts her right hand behind her back and kicks that thing hard and far. She also loves to jump rope, or try to, after seeing the big kids at Dunaway do it one day when she spent the afternoon with BB at school.
Playing with Lille during a mid-walk potty break
(Lille's mommy, Emily, and I are walking together to lose some pounds!)
Her favorite toys: puzzles, an Eric Carl ABC card game that Santa brought, stuffed animals, Jessie costume, anything that starts with a little i and a big P (the girl is an iPod, iPhone, iPad junkie), her balls, golf clubs and basketball goal, sidewalk chalk (and hopscotch), hula hoop, hippity hop, her kitchen, baby stroller, grocery cart, "Kindle", and PlayDoh. She loves to build blocks with Daddy too, but she mostly likes knocking down the towers.
She loves to help Daddy with random chores and help Mommy cook, especially when it involves cracking eggs. She will run to the kitchen and say "crack eggs!"
Helping Daddy bring in fire wood. She didn't want her piece to get burned though, so she kept moving it away from the fireplace.
We're ready for some pretty weather so she can master her Tricycle. She just isn't quite tall or strong enough to push the pedals well yet, but she'll have it down once Spring comes and she gets more riding time in, I'm sure. She's hating the colder days when she can't play outside, although this has been a very mild winter and there have been more days than usual that are good for playing outside. She loves to be pulled in her wagon and you can never go too fast.
She's sleeping much better and bedtime is not so much of a struggle anymore, and she is loving her toddler bed and stays in it VERY well. Sometimes she cries a little, sometimes she doesn't, but it's much less stressful than it was for a while, and she gets her bed just right without fussing and stalling anymore. She even lets Daddy put her to bed from time to time!! She's trying to get out of napping more often, but I can still get one out of her most days. She won't nap at school anymore, I don't know why, but home is usually better. However I will say that it is nice on days where we get busy and naps just aren't in the cards, that an early bedtime is a simple remedy and she handles the change in routine perfectly fine. She loves, loves, loves to hop in her bed, but luckily she doesn't do it at bedtimes.
Reading her book with her flashlight, another new favorite thing to do!
She loves to help pick out her own clothes and shoes. Especially at night, she usually refuses to wear pajamas, she only wants to wear gowns.
Wearing Mommy's shoes
In one of my old coats and hats!
She is a pretty good eater most of the time. She still has her old favorites for the most part.... beans, cheese, yogurt, hot dogs, chicken, ham, turkey, pepperoni, crackers or chips of any kind, cereal (but now she prefers grown up cereals), and she just can't get enough fruit - berries, grapes, bananas, apples, you name it! She also is enjoying sweet treats more like cupcakes and cookies.
Picking out a "nack" from the pantry.
I really hope that soon I will get around to those other posts I have been promising, birthday party, Halloween, Christmas..... the list keeps getting longer! And I need a new blog design and header too. Oy. How did I have time for this when she was a newborn?!
I'll end with this funny story. Kemble brought her empty applesauce packet to me and pointed to the short, plump apple and said "Mama" and pointed to the tall, slender, cinnamon stick and said "Dada". I cried a little. These are the kind of stories that people tell, and I never quite believe that their child randomly said that, but mine did, I promise. I'm sure there are many more of these to come!
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