Saturday, February 27, 2010

Drive-by update

Alphabet soup
Don't know where she got this idea (maybe from the time we tried to play a game on SesameStreet.org?), but she's been taking all her magnet letters and putting them in a bowl and calling it "alphabet soup." It is beyond hilarious, like a lot of stuff she's doing these days.

More self-sufficiency
While I was getting dressed to go to the store with her, I told her to go choose a pair of socks for herself. She took off for her room, pulled out the drawer, got a pair of socks, and brought them back. She said, "I got one pair of socks, only one pair. Not two pairs, not three pairs, not 'o' pairs. One pair only." (the "o" was undoubtedly because of the stuff with the clock, and how you say "seven-oh-three" instead of "seven-zero-three," and it just about floored me.

The Evil Empire
The talking Darth Vader mask that's been in the hallway for several years has finally had an effect on her; she used to tell it good-night, but a couple of weeks ago, she had R. move it into a bedroom closet. She told us "I don't wanna see him. I don't like dat Vader." Smart kid.

The quotable Annika

  • "I'm so tired of dis game." (When she's done playing a game she chose, like three minutes ago.)
  • "I wanna go somewhere." (This morning, when she was getting bored of her toys.)
  • "Dose are not-OK grapes." (Separating out for disposal the slightly aged, puckery-ended ones from the more sprightly ones, which she ate happily.)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Potpourri

This, that, and the other thing ...

Time flies
So Annika's become fascinated with the little travel digital clock we keep on the changing table, always wanting to hold it and push buttons and whatnot, so we started teaching her what the numbers meant, and she's catching on really fast; she knows that the hours are to the left of the little flashin lights (the colon flashes, who knows why), and the minutes are to the right, and that you say them like "seven twenty-three" or whatever. She doesn't know all the numbers in the hour, of course, but she's got the general idea. So the other day, some lady in line at the store asked her how old she was, and she said two, and the lady responded that her little boy was three. When we got out to the parking lot, I asked Annika how old she would be on her next birthday -- she looked blank, so I said, "How old are you now?" "Two." "And what comes after two?" A pause, then a nod and a confident "Forty-four." (In my head, I was like, "No, kid, it only just feels that way ...")

Bread
Another obsession of late: The "How Bread Is Made" section of Busy Busy Town. The story tracks bread from the harvest of the wheat all the way to Able Baker Charlie's exploding oven, and she LOVES it. So I got the idea to make bread with her -- she loves helping in the kitchen, and I figured, hell, we could both learn it (I've never made bread before, except in a breadmaker). I found a step-by-step recipe on the Internets that looked doable, bought the ingredients, and sprang the project on her as a surprise treat on Saturday morning. Y'all -- it was FABULOUS. I mean it. Just AMAZING -- and so much easier than I thought. It's not even that much of a time commitment -- you have to sort of be around (you have to let it rise twice for an hour each, and knead once for ten straight minutes, then bake for 30), but in between you don't have to do anything, so it's ideal for an at-home Saturday. And it's so much fun working in the kitchen with her -- I measured ingredients and she poured them in, and mixed as much as she could, and then of course the kneading was good times, and like her mom, Annika loved eating the dough. Heh. When we got it in the oven, it smelled unbelievably good all through the house, and the finished product was just ridiculouslydelicious -- that afternoon, we all just kept eating plain slices, and the toast and grilled-cheese sandwiches we made from it on Sunday were pretty much the best EVER. I may never eat store-bought bread again.

A city day
Babyschool was closed on Presidents' Day, so I took PTO (we don't get it as a holiday) and planned a fun outing for the two of us. She and I drove to the BART and took the train to downtown SF (kids love trains, it's a universal fact). We got off at the Powell station, and did a little shopping at Gap (tons of new cute stuff for her, a pair of jeans for me) -- the big hit as far as she was concerned were the floor tiles, which were hexagons in one patch, and "dots" in another. Then we spent some time admiring this old-fashioned clock on Market Street (you can see the works of its insides) before running a block or so out of sheer excitement (her shrieking "RUNNING! LIKE BASEBALL!!!"). We caught the F-line trolley down to the Ferry Building, where we wandered around for awhile looking at the big high ceiling, etc. Around 11:00, we went to Taylor's Refresher for lunch; she had a grilled cheese, and stole several of my fries. Then we went to the water's edge to look at all the birds & boats & such, and then went back to BART, arriving home in time for a good long nap. The whole thing worked out so well that I'm really excited to do more of the same with her; she's just old enough now to have a few hours' stamina (provided I bring snacks! snacks can save the day!), and she gets such a charge out of acting like a big kid and going new places & seeing new things. She's a real pleasure to be around these days (not that she's ever not been, in general, but -- you know what I mean -- there are more- and less-hairy phases of kids' growth and development, amirite?). Really great day.

The Quotable Annika
  • Trader Joe's -- now a regular stop on our Sunday-morning rounds: "Trade-a-lader Joe's."
  • About the little sister in the "Little Critter" series of books by Mercer Mayer: "That little girl is a brat."
  • The shape that involves two sets of parallel lines, but isn't a square or rectangle: "Palola gam."
  • When whoever has done the bedtime stories leaves the room: "Night-night! I love you! Go haffa meal and talk to [Mommy or Daddy], den you go to bed."
  • When you want her to do something and she doesn't want to (which is always): "I'm just going to play a little bit of more of de markers job. Juss a little bit of mo."

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

First update of 2010

Wow, I really didn't manage to do a single post in January? Jeez ... well, let's catch up!

Grandma & Grandpa's visit
This is one lucky little girl, to have so many people that love her -- she got to spend a lot of time with her Grandma & Grandpa M. while they were in California over the xmas/New Year holidays. They were very good sports, doing the unceasing bidding of the tiny dictator: "Grandma, sit right here and watch me eat! Grandpa, play baseball -- you trow de ball to Annika!" There was chalk art, hopscotch, millions of stories read and block towers made -- total lovefest all around. She's clearly old enough to remember that kind of fun, too -- still talks about them (although often it's "Grandpa & Grandpa," heh), and definitely looks forward to seeing them again.

Big brothers
We had a Sauce weekend close to my birthday, and let me tell you, M. & H.'s two boys (ages 6 and 8) were the absolute best big brothers ever -- entertaining her, letting her be in on their games as much as was practical, making allowances for her being a toddler and not a kid their age -- it was awesome. She had a blast!

Bathtime
The blue plastic tub has been permanently retired -- she's too big for it now, and besides, she has other ideas about the potential awesomeness of bathtime. Duckies, scoops, pitchers, the whole deal. Takes for-freaking-EVER ...

Reading
No kidding around, she's learning to read. She's always loved books, and she knows her alphabet as well as either of us do, but now -- now she's starting to understand WORDS. It is scary -- she's actually starting to sound out words here and there (e.g. on R.'s shirt, an old Intel giveaway, the made-up word ITANIUM -- she put her finger to it, and from left to right, said "tan-e-um" -- and neither of us had taught her that one). Her new favorite thing on the iPhone is this app called FirstWords -- you drag the letter tiles into place to spell a word they show you, and as you do it, it says the letter; when it's complete, it spells the word out loud, then says the word, then plays a little animation with sound that illustrates it. She can play that thing ALL DAY if you let her. Wild.

New shoes
So it turns out her Chucks, which we knew were due for replacement, are not just one size too small. No ... they're TWO sizes too small now. Yay, parents of the year! Oh well ... so while we wait for a replacement pair of Chucks via Internet, we got her some hilarious running shoes at Target that look almost exactly like my high-end Asics ones -- she loves them so much that she ran over to show them to all her teachers at babyschool first thing Monday morning.

Fashion
She has developed a serious will about her clothes -- insisting on "de RED shirt" or "Not dose kinds of pants! I want to wear de black pants, Mommy!", pitching a king-hell screaming crying freakout over something she doesn't want to wear, etc. It's bizarre how suddenly this started, but it is The Way now.

Sesame Street
For Christmas, Grandma & Grandpa gave her these two DVDs, 40 Years of Sunny Days, which is sort of a best-of from all 40 seasons, and daaaaaamn, does she love it! Every day she wants to watch "monstos," aka Sesame Street. Lucky we love it too -- but we gotta get some more episodes, I tell you what!

In general ...
Life with Annika is pretty freakin' great. Despite the occasional Amazing Tantrum, she is such a sweet kid, so curious and funny, always singing and talking and joking around -- it doesn't take much to make her happy, she's about as easygoing as a toddler could be, and we just adore her.