And a few things more ...

Random notes & whatnot from the life & times of Annika

--Reading: She loves to read and be read to, and now she’s reading to us (or to an imaginary audience, for whom she’ll “read” a page, then turn the book around and hold it up to the room like a teacher or librarian would). She always takes a book into her bed at naptime, which she’ll read out loud for awhile before conking out. She says of the chapter books she’s got (mostly Little House), “I don’t know all the words because I’m not bigger yet.” But it’s clear that she’s getting there -- she doesn’t like being put on the spot (“What does that word say?”) but she knows a LOT of them, and she can spell her own name without looking at it written down. A big thing right now is what “starts with” things, i.e. what letters various words start with -- and she’s good at it.

--Music: Like I said, she sings all day long (real songs, invented songs, mashups), she dances whenever she hears music, she talks all the time about what instruments she wants (e.g. she used to want a pink guitar -- now she wants a blue one -- and she wants to play piano), she recruits everyone around her into bands (“I play guitar. You play keyboards. Daddy play drums.”), she has her own special playlist that she wants to hear in the car (including, but not limited to):

• Yakety Yak (the Coasters)
• Charlie Brown (the Coasters)
• That'll Be the Day (Beatles version)
• Up Around the Bend (Creedence)
• Pizza Pie (Norman Fox & The Rob Roys)
• Be My Baby (Ronettes)
• The Ballad of John and Yoko (Beatles)
• In My Life (Beatles)
• Got My Mind Set On You (George Harrison)
• I Want You Back (Jackson Five)
• Video Killed the Radio Star (Buggles)
• Rock 'n Roll High School (Ramones)
• Rockaway Beach (Ramones)
• Don't Bring Me Down (ELO)
• Take a Chance On Me (ABBA)
• Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
• Sam Cooke: Pretty much everything the man ever recorded. SERIOUSLY. The girl loves her some Sam Cooke.
• Lot of Motown, including: Where Did Our Love Go, You Can't Hurry Love, Tears of a Clown, etc.
• Stevie Wonder, including: For Once In My Life, Superstition, Isn't She Lovely
• And a WHOLE BUNCH of doo-wop, including I Wonder Why (Dion & the Belmonts), Earth Angel (the Penguins), Get a Job, Rama Lama Ding Dong, Blue Moon, Duke of Earl

--Independence: She can dress and undress herself completely on her own now -- even gets the tags correctly in the back! It’s kind of amazing how quickly she caught on, and how thoroughly she mastered it in such a short time. And the trick she does to get her own coat on -- puts it down on the ground, shoves both arms in, and flips it over her head -- is hysterical to watch! (Learned, presumably, at babyschool -- and we make such a fuss over her doing it, that she doesn’t really want to do it unless we make her. heh.) We’re now completely done with sippy cups (except one we keep in the fridge, filled with water, for convenience on the go); it’s real cups only (and hilariously, she likes a top on her cup of milk at the coffee shop now -- “This is my coffee. PERTEND coffee. [blows on it] It’s very very hot.”). Also: no more diapers! First, she decided one day this spring that she wanted to go to babyschool without one, and that was that; there were maybe four accidents over the next couple of weeks (mostly due to her not wanting to quit whatever she was doing to go to the bathroom), then they sent all those extra shorts & undies home, declaring victory. Then she decided no more pullups at naptime at home -- never an accident there. Then, finally, just a couple of weeks ago, she said no more nighttime diapers -- “Underpants ONLY!” -- and darned if that hasn’t been the case. Yaaaaaaay!

--Dinner out: We now have quite high confidence in her as an early-evening dining companion -- we tried it a couple of times (and dinner went reaaally long the first time, out at Barolo with Mamalah), and it worked! Such stamina -- we’re impressed and really glad; it is so nice to be able to do that from time to time.

--Things outgrown: Her size 7 shoes, the blanket dots (too short; had to buy her a new fleece for bed & for babyschool), the first peg on her trike (R. has to move the seat back), baby toothpaste (we’re using a kids’ one with fluoride, which we’ve had to teach her not to swallow, and to rinse afterward), the pack ‘n play (we bought a new inflatable “big-girl travel bed” which she loves -- although now she HAS to sleep in our room, because there’s no containment at all and we can’t have her loose in the house away from home quite yet ...).

--Fun stuff: Going for a ride on the Ocean Walk on her trike, especially when Daddy accompanies her on her/his skateboard (it’s hers, but it’s a real one that will hold him -- though comically undersized for his height), helping Mommy in the kitchen, doing crafts, writing, pretending to mail stuff, singing all day long, playing games and watching videos of herself on her iPhone (R.‘s outmoded 1st-gen one, decommissioned from the phone & internet functions), going with me to Trader Joe’s (aka “Traderlader Joe’s”) on Sundays around 8:00 a.m. to do the week’s grocery shopping (they play good music, there are samples, and they have those little grocery carts for her; she knows to look for “organic”, and always remembers to ask for stickers at the checkout -- she’s such a good little helper!).

--Skills: Her coloring, painting, tracing and drawing skills are frickin AMAZING. She colors inside the lines, she can trace all her letters (and do a bunch on her own -- A, S, D, T, L, C, etc.), spell her own name without looking at it, draw stuff that really looks like what she means it to be (I saved this one Foofa she made -- it kills me). Surprises every day on this score.

--Math: I guess this started at babyschool, but we’re doing some stuff with addition and subtraction. Like, hold up five fingers and say, “What’s five plus one?” and count all of them to determine it’s six. Again, she doesn’t like being put on the spot, but she likes figuring it out.

--Obsession: Yo Gabba Gabba. It’s a kids’ TV show, featuring one human (DJ Lance Rock) and five nonhuman characters that live in a boombox, only to be animated when they go to Gabbaland. It has funny little bits, kids dancing and/or doing “Cool Tricks,” animations, new music by real bands, awesome lessons -- it’s as great as the old Sesame Street. We discovered it in ... what, February? March? and it grew into a major obsession -- good thing R. and I also love it or we might be going out of our minds by now. YGG shoes and Muno pillow for Christmas, YGG theme for her birthday party, YGG songs on eternal repeat in all of our brains ...

Games

--The naptime game: HUGE hit, this game. It involves taking every stuffed animal and toy and whatnot, finding them a pillow and a blanket (everything from a cardboard box to a washcloth or kleenex), and having them lie down on the floor & get covered up while she says “shhh” and pats them on the back. She will do this for HOURS if you let her. I remember doing much the same thing, especially at my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ houses, in kindergarten.

--Baseball: She loves to play baseball -- she’ll hunker down in a catcher’s stance and demand you throw her a ball, or she’ll run around the room hurling herself face- or knees-first at what she says is a base, or get you into “Sstrow ... catch! Sstrow ... catch!” anytime, anywhere.

--Literalness as a joke: One facet of her sense of humor ... for example, I told her to put her pants on, and she said OK, and I puttered around doing something else while I waited, then went to check -- and she had them on, all right. On her HEAD. She was dancing around laughing “I put my pants on, Mommy!!”