15 June 2007

Raina and mom have spent a whole week together and, I have to admit, the older Raina gets, the easier the summers become. My first summer off with Raina drove me completely insane (free time, never!), last summer was fun because Raina could actually do somewhat active things (she'd get excited about going to the grocery store, for instance), and this summer is the best yet. Raina is a miniature-sized person who likes to be out and about and can entertain herself most of the time. We drop daddy off at work, go to the playground, go to the Y, eat lunch, take a nap, eat a snack, pick daddy up from work, and then play and read books until bedtime. It's such an easy and joyous routine; so far, neither one of us has gotten bored, which is the definite sign of summer success.

Raina is taking a baby gymnastics class on Thursdays, which mostly involves her running and jumping and climbing with a bunch of other two years-olds. It's remarkably similar to going to the playground, except that gymnastics is air conditioned. Nice!

We also make trips to the library. Raina will experience her very first library story time next week, which I hope will be disaster-free. Raina mostly revels in ALL THE BOOKS when she goes to the library, which means she pulls a bunch off the shelves, sits down, flips through, and then pulls even more books off the shelves to repeat the process. She doesn't understand the concept of an "inside voice" so our library visits get cut short more often than not. We've never been evicted from the library though: she's too cute for that to happen.

We Whomptons play lots of games, and Raina often wants to be part of the fun. Unfortunately, most games require dexterity, strategy, and a recognition that pieces move for a reason. But we bought a game for her, in the hopes that she would get the concept and we could play. Candyland. It's possibly the worst game in existence. You draw a card, on which is a color. You then move your piece to the color on the board and go from there. There's absolutely NO FREE WILL or THINKING in this game, which we thought we would be the perfect match for Raina. Raina just doesn't get it though. She likes the fact that there are game pieces (shaped like little gingerbread men and colored -- very exciting) and she knows that the game pieces represent the person playing. (I know this because she brings me the red piece every day and says "mommy." Raina has claimed the yellow piece for her own permanently and calls it Raina.) She likes flipping the card over and identifying the color shown. She does not like it, however, that we have to move our pieces to where the card says. She thinks, rightfully so, that the yellow piece should only reside on yellow squares because they match. No amount of cajoling has convinced her otherwise. We tried using the small family dolls (mommy, daddy, Sammy, Raina) but Raina remembers that Sammy had the green gingerbread man and so should only go on green squares. This has been a failed venture thus far, and it's clear why this game is identified as "ages three and up."

Raina has lovies, bunches of them. She knows that she has three stuffed cats, so when getting in the car, she wants to bring all three. We have most animals covered: the typical bears (at least ten of these) and multiple dogs and cats. We also have the more exotic stuffed animals: parrot, turkey, monkey, reindeer, fish, sheep, beaver, frogs, bunnies, turtles, and, of course, the cow. Raina LOVES her cow unconditionally, she sleeps with it, hugs it, kisses it, bites it fiercely, and rejoices when she sees him again. (She doesn't let him leave the house often; I don't think she wants to share her cow with anyone. I actually am petrified that my car will be stolen with the cow inside, and the devastatingly hard thing to replace will be the cow.) Anyway, she often has at least one lovey in tow, which makes her even harder to carry around.

Here are two great pictures of Raina + lovies. The first picture's story is simple. Mom sat down, and Raina sat down too, but brought the animals from her bed that morning: two small bears, one very large yellow bear, a pink puppy, a white kitty, and a gorilla. Excellent! The second is from a road trip; the whole back seat was filled with stuffed animals!

Comments

Emelye said…
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Emelye said…
I just found the NYC library branch 2 blocks from my cubicle -- this changes my life. I checked out my first 3 books yesterday. It was tough leaving the other 10 books I wanted on the shelf. They were all comic books of course. But I'm afraid I had to use my outside voice a little to get my library card activated for my home address. Who carries their electric bills around with them?
Lucky for you that she doesn't want to take that big yellow thing everywhere she goes or you'd need a dolly! LOL!!!!

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