Drawing, Singing, and Zoo-ing
Raina the artist frequently smushes play-doh and draws pictures with crayons and pencils. Her greatest achievement was that she could draw circles. She was so impressed that she could draw something that another human being recognized without being told. (Admittedly, her parents were pretty excited too.) But after a week or so of circles, we realized that she could do more. She put circles together, and drew her very first picture of a person this week. She was SO PROUD of herself and of her picture. We made a huge deal out of it, and took pictures of her and her sketches. Here she is, preening and proud.
Raina no longer requires a long cuddling process before bed. In fact, she has no desire to cuddle with a parent at all in the traditional format. Instead, she gets in the cuddle chair, pats the seat for the adult to sit, and then hugs the adult from behind. Then she shoves the adult up and says "bedtime." She rarely goes straight to sleep: she'll kick her feet or chatter to her stuffed animals or flop around. Occasionally she sings to herself. Loudly. During the morning news, there is a kids-oriented commercial promoting good oral hygiene that has a "brushing and flossing teeth" song. Raina knows it and sings it at high volumes when in her bed. Logically, she'd want to sing this before or during the brushing teeth phase of bedtime, but it doesn't occur to her then. Or it's just difficult to sing with a toothbrush in her mouth.
Raina has progressed past her choo-choo train toothpaste (toddler safe) to the Cars toothpaste (big girl, ages 2-6). She's always swallowed the train toothpaste -- I think it tasted like candy because she just wanted to eat it. But with the Cars toothpaste she actually has to spit it out. And they made it taste like candy again! She was so confused! But we've practiced spitting a lot, and she's slowly getting the hang of it. Now something actually comes out of her mouth when she tries and Raina will walk into a bathroom and say "want to spit!" as opposed to "want to brush teeth." It's amazing all the things that you have to teach a person.
Raina kept the same diaper dry for over 24 hours this weekend. She slept all night without wetting herself AND she pooped in the potty today. Going all night is rather impressive. The poor little diaper was rather shabby by the time it was replaced this evening.
We had a full agenda for the weekend, which included going to the zoo, making a pillow fort, going to the Y, playing football, a birthday party, and carving pumpkins. (Raina wanted to go swimming too, but it just didn't happen.) The penguin/puffin exhibit is still Raina's favorite, although the whole savannah series was a close second. Raina walked a significant part of the zoo, which definitely was a first, and the little miss ran up a big hill to get closer to the giraffes! And the tiger and the lion and the zebra and the okapi, well, Raina loved those too. Of all the animals we saw, Raina was totally unnerved by -- you guessed it -- snails. I'm not certain what about them was so unsettling, but she would have nothing to do with them and she wanted to move away from their tank as quickly as she could.
The pillow fort was rather spectacular; Eric turned the entire downstairs into a 2-feet high wonderland. Raina loved playing "get you" in the fort and then destroying all of Eric's efforts with a few key strokes. Football was a blast for the Whompton adults and Raina seemed rather happy during the whole session today. At one point, she tried to get up and play football too. The play-doh sidetracked her.
Raina can read/recite another book, which is very cute. She won't read these books by herself; she definitely wants an adult on hand to congratulate her at each page. We are so proud of her.
Raina no longer requires a long cuddling process before bed. In fact, she has no desire to cuddle with a parent at all in the traditional format. Instead, she gets in the cuddle chair, pats the seat for the adult to sit, and then hugs the adult from behind. Then she shoves the adult up and says "bedtime." She rarely goes straight to sleep: she'll kick her feet or chatter to her stuffed animals or flop around. Occasionally she sings to herself. Loudly. During the morning news, there is a kids-oriented commercial promoting good oral hygiene that has a "brushing and flossing teeth" song. Raina knows it and sings it at high volumes when in her bed. Logically, she'd want to sing this before or during the brushing teeth phase of bedtime, but it doesn't occur to her then. Or it's just difficult to sing with a toothbrush in her mouth.
Raina has progressed past her choo-choo train toothpaste (toddler safe) to the Cars toothpaste (big girl, ages 2-6). She's always swallowed the train toothpaste -- I think it tasted like candy because she just wanted to eat it. But with the Cars toothpaste she actually has to spit it out. And they made it taste like candy again! She was so confused! But we've practiced spitting a lot, and she's slowly getting the hang of it. Now something actually comes out of her mouth when she tries and Raina will walk into a bathroom and say "want to spit!" as opposed to "want to brush teeth." It's amazing all the things that you have to teach a person.
Raina kept the same diaper dry for over 24 hours this weekend. She slept all night without wetting herself AND she pooped in the potty today. Going all night is rather impressive. The poor little diaper was rather shabby by the time it was replaced this evening.
We had a full agenda for the weekend, which included going to the zoo, making a pillow fort, going to the Y, playing football, a birthday party, and carving pumpkins. (Raina wanted to go swimming too, but it just didn't happen.) The penguin/puffin exhibit is still Raina's favorite, although the whole savannah series was a close second. Raina walked a significant part of the zoo, which definitely was a first, and the little miss ran up a big hill to get closer to the giraffes! And the tiger and the lion and the zebra and the okapi, well, Raina loved those too. Of all the animals we saw, Raina was totally unnerved by -- you guessed it -- snails. I'm not certain what about them was so unsettling, but she would have nothing to do with them and she wanted to move away from their tank as quickly as she could.
The pillow fort was rather spectacular; Eric turned the entire downstairs into a 2-feet high wonderland. Raina loved playing "get you" in the fort and then destroying all of Eric's efforts with a few key strokes. Football was a blast for the Whompton adults and Raina seemed rather happy during the whole session today. At one point, she tried to get up and play football too. The play-doh sidetracked her.
Raina can read/recite another book, which is very cute. She won't read these books by herself; she definitely wants an adult on hand to congratulate her at each page. We are so proud of her.
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