Wednesday, March 6, 2013

February 2013


Annika’s first dentist appointment
We finally got around to calling the cousins’ beloved pediatric dentist, so Lukas and I took Annika to her first dentist appointment. They sent a personalized booklet to us in the mail so she’d know what to expect (she likes us to read that one to her at bedtime sometimes ... funny kid!). The guy turned out to look like Mr. Rosso from Freaks and Geeks, and he was really nice, gentle and low-key. All is well in the tooth department; she handled the whole thing like a champ, and the main news is that she has two loose teeth (the bottom center ones), so now she’s all excited about the Tooth Fairy. 

New words for Lukas
He’s added quite a few: car, bird, button, cup, milk, cracker, Mommy, belly (with rubbing!), elbow, thank you, blueberry, corn, car, whoa!, zipper, book, moon, teeth, baby, down, sock, hat (goes on) head, and many more. Of particular note is how much he loves cars (this excited, wondering “caaahhh!” whenever he sees one; the way he can turn any object into a car to play with) and balls (“BAH!”, he’ll shout, often with an enthusiastic chucking motion of the arm; again, anything can be a ball, as far as he’s concerned), and the way he shouts “Daddeh!” when he hears a footstep on the stairs or any sound outside that might be a person. 

Baby kisses
The little guy’s been a hugger for awhile, but this is the month he figured out kisses, and blowing kisses -- it is so sweet, and so cute! Actual kisses he mostly gives to his family, but he’ll blow a kiss to anyone: The palm slapped to the mouth, the loud smooch, and then the wave -- he does it pretty much whenever we leave anywhere (like to the room at large when we leave the gym, as if they’re all his adoring fans). 

The ways we entertain ourselves ... 
If we’re not at the park, we’re having some sort of loud fun at home. For example, the horses game in the dining room one evening. Both of them had finished their dinners, so I let them muck around a little before we went up for baths. Annika requested “horsey noises,” which I made by slapping my hands on my thighs, and added more noise by also tromping my feet (it was pretty loud, sounded like a whole herd of horses to me). The two of them chased each other around the dining table, shrieking and laughing and changing direction randomly. For once, we stopped at just the right time, before somebody started crying. Yay! 

Annika is reading for real (and other developments of the mind)
Somewhere in the last month or so, Annika has made the leap to real reading (as opposed to just recognizing certain words or guessing from pictures). It’s more than a little bit amazing to watch her world expand like that, and we are so proud of her! Also, she’s full of curiosity on so many subjects: wildlife games (like pretending we’re all lions, and killing & eating whatever a given animal eats -- “Want some of the zebra’s mane, Daddy?”), facts about the Presidents (and Hillary Clinton), counting by tens and twos, cultural practices (the red envelope under the pillow for Chinese New Year -- which is a real thing -- leading directly to the heart underneath the pillow for Valentine’s Day -- which is her invention); etc. She did get benched in her tumbling class at the community center for messing around and not paying attention because she was entertaining some other kid (O THE TEARS! O THE AGONY! O THE LESSON LEARNED!), but at school, her teacher, Ms. Varsha, told me she loves doing her workbooks now, and that she’s the best writer in the class. Awwww! And she’s already a published writer -- she finished her first book (a handwritten, illustrated hardback), entitled The Animals Get Together, and has started on another. Big times for our smart little girl! Speaking of which ... 

Registering for Kindergarten
We registered for real school this month! She’ll start at our neighborhood kindergarten this August -- five days a week, uniforms, the whole bit. It’s a little bit crazy, and impossible to believe it’s time, but time it is. We are pitching it as an exciting new adventure for a brave, big girl, and she does seem to be excited for it. :-) 

Lukas miscellany
--He graduated to the wooden high chair this month. He was plenty big enough, and we needed to get that gigantic swing chair out of the dining room, but mainly I was hoping, as with all things, that it would help with the changeover to eating real food instead of baby food, but ... so far, not so much. He does seem to like his new, higher perch, though, so there’s that. 
--When he is not committed to any particular activity, he has a Circuit of Parental Annoyance and Troublemaking that he’ll do over and over again: Attack the DVD player on/off button, investigate and remove something from the recycling, pull up the heat vent cover from the floor, pull the dishtowel from its wire rack on the door under the kitchen sink, grab a package of the batteries we store in the GD refrigerator door. Repeat. Change order, just for kicks. Repeat until bodily snatched up and put in the pack n play. 
--We bought removable gates for the bottom of the stairs and the hallway between kitchen and entryway; with both engaged, the bathroom, laundry room and guest room doors shut and the pocket door to the kitchen closed, he can more or less be contained within one area. But do not get comfortable; he can knock the gates down if he tries hard enough, and one thoughtless partial closure of a door can ruin the whole plan.