New Dance Class

Amelia's new dance class started tonight. We have graduated from the Tots class to Preschool Ballet & Tap. I registered her a couple of Saturdays ago and was told that she would go in with her bag which would have both her ballet and tap shoes in it, that they would be labeled with her name in them and she will put them on herself, that she may need some assistance at first but that she would learn how to do it on her own. Then Angel looks at me and says, "You know, you won't be in there with her." I almost started crying. When I got home and told Amelia's daddy I did start crying. Part of why I love taking her to dance is because it's so much fun to see her having so much fun. But really, I wasn't prepared for the separation. (Or the cost! Much more than tots ... but oh well.)

It wasn't so bad tonight. I sent her in there and was able to watch (along with many of the other moms!) through a window. They were adorable, Amelia listened and followed along and looked adorable. (I didn't have the camera with me ... I'll take a picture next week.)

She's growing up so fast.

Copy Cat

In the last couple of months Amelia had demonstrated a greater desire to be doing whatever it is I am doing. Today I was mending something and Amelia wanted to help. I remembered her wooden box with the bear that you can "sew" wooden clothes onto by pulling various colored shoelace looking strings through holes so I showed that to her again. She really enjoyed it - although like many things lately, they are a 2-person activity. I managed to get my mending job completed and then we had some quality time while Amelia learned how to sew and un-sew on her bear.

I miss Amelia's ability to play independently as much as she used to, but I can see how much fun she will be very soon. While Play-Doh and painting require my participation these days (she gets bored and therefore messy very quickly) we have had a lot of fun playing games like Chutes & Ladders. She will still do puzzles on her own and has easily moved up to 24 piece puzzles. She sometimes gets distracted halfway through and will start playing something else.

We're trying to teach her is putting one toy away before moving onto something new. It's amazing how much energy it takes to be a parent. You are either playing, teaching or guiding constantly. Plus, there's the mental requirement of staying one step ahead with choices since yes/no questions are completely off limits these days. (As in: do you need to go potty? Are you going to come to the table and eat dinner?)

Aww Freak Out!

I work through suppertime two nights a week. As a result, Daddy and Amelia get some primetime alone together that they might not otherwise have. Every so often, he teaches her some interesting things, like what I came home to tonight.

Video dated 8/25/09

Popcorn

We take our date nights when we can, however we can. Last night, after spending all day cleaning out wet boxes from the basement (thanks to a leaking heat pump), we decided to rent a movie (Pink Panther 2 with Steve Martin) and made some microwave popcorn after Amelia went to bed. About 2 minutes into it we hear her door open and she comes out and looks at us sitting on the couch, big eyes on our bowls and says, "I need some of your snack." She hasn't had popcorn yet (it was on the list of choking hazards and we don't have it often enough to justify going out of our way to introduce it to her since it's not as nutritionally sound as other choking hazards such as raisins). I thought, why not, and let her have some and she loved it. Off she scooted to bed and we watched our movie.

This morning she saw the leftover popcorn on the kitchen table and climbed up in the chair, sitting properly for a few moments and saying she "needed a taste" of my popcorn. She then got down, played for a few minutes and repeated the climbing up, sitting on her bottom and declaring she needed another taste. Meanwhile, I'm making our usual Sunday morning waffles and beginning to wonder if she will have any appetite for them once they are ready! I thought it was funny that she would get up in the chair when she could have just pulled the bowl down.

So now she has a new treat. Must add microwave popcorn to the shopping list - last night was our last bag!

Motorboat

When Amelia objects to something (which is often these days), she goes, "But, but, but," while she is putting her thoughts (objection) together in her head. Daddy told her she sounds like a motorboat and I have to agree.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We bought Grandma a birthday card the other day. Amelia picked one out with squirrels on it and was emphatic about buying that one and not any of the others, including one with a cute white kitty on it.

When she wished Grandma a happy birthday over the phone this morning, Amelia remembered that the card she sent had squirrels on it. I had already forgotten!

And speaking of Grandma, Amelia knows Grandma's first name now. She was picking out a band-aid the other day for her bug bite and she picked Pat the hammer out of her box of Handy Manny band-aids. I told her that was Grandma's name and she said, "It is?" Then she runs into the living room and asks, "Daddy, is that what you call Mommy's mother? Do you call her Pat?" She amazes me at how quickly she assimilates new information.

You Can't Fool Her

Stopped by work to get Amelia's goat milk. (It gets delivered there by a local farmer.) Amelia insisted on coming in even though it was going to take me 2 seconds to get it out of the fridge. While I went to the back Amelia decided to play her, "What's your name?" game with Debbie & Jean. So they played along and told her their names were George & Frank. I heard Jean tell Amelia her name was Frank and then Amelia looked at Jean real serious and said, "What's that?" Jean said, "You mean, what am I wearing? These are men's clothes. Don't you think these pink pants belong on a man?" Amelia was quiet for a good minute and Jean patiently waited for an answer. Then Amelia, all on her own (and I couldn't see her face from where I was) says, "You're teasing me!"

I was impressed! Not only did she figure it out but rather than just saying, "No, that's silly," or something like that, she came back with the true assessment of the situation.

But her awareness doesn't end there. When we got home, I unhooked her seatbelt and left her car door open so she could get out on her own while I went upstairs to put the milk away. When she didn't follow a few minutes later I went downstairs and found her in the driver's seat smearing sunscreen all over herself. (I had left a small tube of it in my car door to use when we go to the park. Apparently she noticed.) Won't be leaving her alone in the car anymore!

Cable Guy

The local cable/internet guy came by today to figure out why our internet service has been intermittent lately. I invited him in and before I could tell him what was going on Amelia says, "Where do you work?" He looks down at her and says, "I work for Charter Communications. Where do you work?" She looked at him and said, "I don't work anywhere. Childs don't work, they play!"

She did a good job of playing on her own until he came to tell me what he found. At that point, she comes out of nowhere and starts jabbering at me LOUDLY. This is only a little less annoying than her latest habit of repeating herself. She doesn't seem to yet understand, "Amelia, I heard you the first time."

Tonight after supper she was playing with her lion puppet. She asked me what lions ate and so I said, "Deer." "Deer?" she asked and so I affirmed with, "Yes, like Bambi." She responded, "I'll go get Bambi." So the lion ate Bambi and she was fine with it. Apparently she has no problems with the food chain.

Chores

Amelia loves to help out and I am discovering how much fun it is to let her. Her latest "chore" is helping me make the bed daddy and I sleep in. Teaching her the corners and how you pull the sheet, then blanket, then bedspread over each other has been fun. It's not as smooth as I would like, but it's still made (read here: sleeping surface is safe from direct hit by various cat things such as hair, vomit, etc.). We've been doing the bed together for about a week now and it's so cute to hear her talk through the process and say, "Cover all of the dark sheet, cover all of the white sheet, cover all of the blanket, now pull the stripes all the way over the blanket."

She brings the same enthusiasm to taking the recyclable (such as an empty soda bottle) downstairs or helping me set the table.

Her attention span wanes a bit on putting the silverware away and also putting the laundry in the dryer. She isn't super interested in putting her toys away, so there are still things to work on of course. I'd be a little concerned if she was too good at being mommy's helper all the time, but hopefully she will always be interested in helping and not perceive everything as a chore.

Things She Says

On the vacation post I forgot something important that we want to remember. The morning we checked out of the Colorado Springs hotel Amelia woke up, as usual, in the pre-dawn pre-5 a.m. hour. I followed her to the bathroom and she saw the hotel bill on the floor that had been slipped under our door. She says, "Somebody sent us a message!"

Amelia is more interested in drawing lately. She often draws random circles and squiggles and such and claims they are horses, dogs, etc. Now she draws these odd shaped things and says, "Look, Mommy, I drew you a heart because I love ya!" I tried to get that on a video clip, but she said I love you instead.

A couple of weeks ago she had seen an episode of Max & Ruby at Nana's. She came home and wanted to make keep out signs for our doors. She sat at her Pooh table in the kitchen and proceeded to ask me how to spell keep, then out, etc. (Each sign says, "Keep Out! No, this means you.") Then she had to tape it to her door. Then she made one for ours, and then one for the bathroom. When Daddy came home she showed him the signs and made him read them. She still talks about them. (Did I mention that I think Max & Ruby are annoying and she doesn't watch that show at home?)

Lately she likes to run through a set of numbers and purposely skips one. Then she quizzes me on which one she skipped. I have to really pay attention now.

Speaking of skipping numbers, we've had a lot of fun this summer making hopscotches. Somewhere along the line I got the bright idea to reinforce shapes and so now we have hopscotches that start out with a square, but then there is a heart, a star, a diamond (which she draws a tai on and turns into a kite), etc.

Today we were in Target and on the way toward the checkout when I noticed that some of the Oxi-Clean tubs were on clearance. I slowed down to determine if they were really a bargain and Amelia pipes up, "We need Oxi Clean!" How does she know what it is? I asked her that and she grabs one and said, "It says it right on the front Mommy!" Um, I think the well placed ads on Nickelodeon have more to do with it.

We rarely go to Target because it's so out of the way for us. While we were there we bought more sidewalk chalk and when we came home she drew the word Target (after asking me what the letters were) on the driveway. She also included the bulls-eye before the T. The things that capture her imagination are amazing to me.