Friday, October 16, 2009

Stats, year two

So we had Annika's 2-year well-baby checkup, and of course it was fab -- except for the shots, about which the less said the better. Poor kid.

Anyhow, she's now 28 lbs, 8 oz., and an even 34 inches tall -- a gain of 2.5 inches in height since her last checkup! Go baby go!

Friday, October 9, 2009

TWO!!!

Happy birthday, tiny girl!

We can't quite believe it, but she's two years old today. We've gotten her to say "It's my birthday," but her main concern is that there be balloons and smoke detectors. Heh. Very important. She'll get one present tonight, but we're saving most of the fun for tomorrow: cupcakes, presents, balloons, anything she wants. On Monday, she'll have muffins and photos to take to babyschool (they have this whole thing they do); R. is going to be there, but I can't think of a way I could be there also, unless I take the day off, which is kind of not good since I was off three days last week for our trip to Texas.

Anyway, we're so excited for her birthday, and so happy with the girl that she is -- we couldn't have asked for a better kid, and she just gets more adorable every day. Thanks to everyone for the love and birthday wishes -- Annika's a lucky girl to have you all around her.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Time flies ...

... when you're busy, have no childcare and can't seem to get it together! Long time, no update, is what I'm saying. I'm going to just have to make it a regular thing one day a week, cause when I don't, it really gets away from me -- and there's so much to catch up on, this might take a while.

Baby school
When her previous daycare provider returned from Iran, she also moved, and the new place was a second-floor apartment -- probably OK for babies, but not for an active almost-two-year-old. So we went looking for alternatives, and settled on trying to find a Montessori preschool. Thanks in HUGE part to Aunt Amy, who shared her research with us, we narrowed it down to two places, and after some visits and discussion, chose DeLor Montessori, which is not far from R.'s work. She started in September in the Twos class, because they (and we) felt that she could handle it (being only a month away from her birthday) and because that would be one less transition when she would have to move into the Twos. The first week went really well, but the second was really rough; mostly at drop-off, when she cried and screamed and begged Daddy not to go, but also some during the day (they told us she cried off and on all day). We talked about it with her a lot, and the next week, she was back to enjoying it. We're hoping that's the New Normal! She seems to really dig circle time, and her teachers, and the playground (we dump a cup or two of sand out of her shoes every night that she goes!), and the kids, and the slides, and all of that good stuff. So it's a huge load off of our minds that she has a good place that she likes to go to -- it's an even fifty percent more expensive than the old place, but them's the breaks. She was ready for more stimulation, more interaction, the chance to learn and grow and be more active, so ... all in all, a big win.

The gym
While we were between care situations, both of us still needed to go to the gym, and I decided one day that she was old enough to handle the Kids' Club at our local facility. So I checked her in, ran for 30 mins on the treadmill, and went back -- to find she didn't want to leave! So much to do there ... and so many "keeds!" She likes to tell us about it, and about going "up up up! to the ceiling!" on this huge play structure they have, and she wants to go all the time now.

Mynah bird
This is another one from Mason and Ethan -- she'll say "Hey mom!" or "Hey dad!" exactly the way they say it. It's really startling -- there's no "baby" voice in there at all. It's like a recording. Bizarre & hilarious. By the way, she's so psyched on the Maalgaard family that she asks at least once a day if we can get in the car and go to Mike's, to see Mike and "Hitu" and Mason and Ethan. Also, she saw a picture of someone with a moustache, and said "Mason," because Mason had been wearing a fake moustache half the time we were last there. The boys are like rock stars to her, for reals.

Look, she knows her letters
So many new phrases, said in her adorable little voice -- "On de flo." "Good mawnin." etc. And she knows what she wants -- we tried to get her to sleep longer at the last Sauce, and she goes, "I take 'em off jammies now. Okay. Yes." Her meaning was clear -- get me out of these pajamas, and into some play clothes, because it is time to party.

Name that baby
She knows her name, and can say it when she's asked ("Ah-nee-kah"), and recognize it when she sees it written.

Food and drink
She can drink from a cup now -- we need to get some smaller ones like they have at babyschool, but she can do it by herself, and often prefers to. The only thing is, she's still a little heedless of the fact that she can easily knock it over or splash it out, because there's no top, and it upsets her when she spills stuff. So we're working on that awareness. She continues to be up for eating a variety of things, so we just keep it coming, knowing that pickiness could manifest at any time and trying to get as much good stuff in her as we can, while we can. Heh. Her restaurant manners are solid, too; in addition to our Celia's outings, I've started a Friday night custom wherein we'll go to a local restaurant around 5:30, sit down and order a dinner for her (like a mac n chee) and takeout entrees for me and R., and she and I sit there while she has her dinner and I wait for the rest of the order. It's practice for having good manners at the dinner table and in public, and it's a fun way for the two of us to get a little downtime after my work-from-home day.

Family visits
Luckily for us, we had already arranged a two-week visit for my mom that happened to fall into the daycare gap we didn't know we'd be having. A few weeks later, R.'s mom came for another couple of weeks. Grandmothers and Annika had a wondrous, fabulous time, as ever. Although it's apparent that it takes a lot more energy to keep up with a running-and-walking-obsessed toddler than with a snuggly baby! Right now, we're on a quick visit to Mamalah, Aunt Lesley and Great-Granddad Kelly in Texas, and she's made fast friends with the latter two as we bomb around town.

Coffee shop
A favorite thing of ours now is to take a walk on the ocean walk to the coffee shop, go in and sit down with a treat (usually a cookie -- I eat 90 percent, and break off little bits for her that are about 10 percent), then wander around the place for a bit before heading home. She loves it so much that when I say we're going on an outing, she says "Coffee shop? Treat? Go go go!" no matter where I was intending to go.

The zoo!
While Mamalah was here in August, she and I tried Annika at the zoo for the first time. It went OK, although we started past naptime and couldn't really find our way around, so that was a learning experience for us! Then, on Labor Day weekend, R. and I tried it again (I'd bought a family membership, so it was going to be OK if we had to bail!), and it was a big hit. We saw flamingos (she'll tell you that while standing on one leg!), gorillas ([gorilla noise]), goats, sheep, ducks, llamas, giraffes, etc., and of course -- STAIRS. Oh yes, the stairs. This baby is a stair-climbin' fool. It's the first thing she says when you ask what we saw at the zoo.

Language
First of all, her pronunciation is getting better and better. "Smoke detector" started out "akaka." Then it was "ekaka," then "dekeka," then "hmoke ... ekaka," and now "smoke deee-teka." Pretty much everything's going that way -- words are getting clearer, sentences are getting longer, she's trying to tell stories (although she's an unreliable narrator -- can't take her word for what happened, heh!), and she's astonishingly good at repeating new things she hears (and in context, too!). She's got so many words now that I'm going to discontinue listing new acquisitions -- it's not even about words anymore (although her vocabulary is huge and growing every day); it's about using them and putting them in context and figuring out meanings and making herself understood.

Time, days, and relative concepts
At babyschool, they're learning the days of the week (she has a little song she sings), and though she still gets them out of order, she can say all seven really well, and can come up with all of them on her own. She gets the ideas of tomorrow, today and yesterday, plus "later" and "tonight" (for example, she's into seeing the sunset, which she informs us is "at night, sunset, sleepytime"). It's amazing how she seems to grasp abstract and relative concepts -- a much more sophisticated understanding of things than she had even a month or two ago. Her hearing -- and more specifically, her ability to figure out what sounds are and what they mean, and imitate them -- is amazing. She's now thoroughly used to trains (you can hear them all day and night from our house, the way the sound carries), the teapot, the coffee maker, fire trucks, you name it.

Beatles dance!
Our new thing in the evenings is what she calls "Beatles dance" or "dance Beatles." We'll put some Beatles tunes on the stereo from one of our ipods, and all three of us will dance around like maniacs just before time for teeth brushing and bath and sleepytown. She listens for drums, guitar, singing, and tambourine, she sings along with the "woooo"s and claps along with handclaps -- it is so, so much fun.