I’m a little afraid that I’ll forget some of the wonderful things about this age as pregnancy progresses (and when the little baby pops out!).
-Tuesday can make a “coffee shop” out of anything anywhere. She has terrible service, but you just can’t resist going back to the place.
-Constantly surprising us with her correct use of the English language. She woke up last night to go potty and called for papa to come help her. When he showed up she exclaimed, “Oh you scared me. I didn’t expect you from that direction!”
-Made up words. Tuesday has a huge vocabulary, but I guess it’s not enough. She loves to make up words. Above you can see me drinking Mama Cabahna tea. Making up a word to rhyme with a real word is a favorite activity.
-Reading, reading, reading. Still probably the most favorite activity. She has lots of books “memorized” and I can hear her on the monitor reading them to herself. It is so cute. She won’t do this as much around us so I haven’t figure out how to get it on video.
-Being a baby. This is not so cute for this mama. Pretend crying, crawling and not wanting to wipe herself (?!?!). All very annoying, and I’m trying to be cool about it and hope a lot of this has to do with new baby talk and maybe she can get it out of her system before said new baby arrives.
-Baby stuff. She loves that the baby’s crib is set up in her room now. She excitedly shows guests how she helped me organize the changing table, and what each thing is for (diapers, covers, air out pads, etc.). She does an adorable “ohhhh and awe” over the tiny baby things.
-Pretend play. Anything having to do with being a doctor or dentist. Playing with her critters or Playmobil “guys” and setting up little scenes. She loves to take “people” to parties and picnics.
-Dressing herself in the most crazy awesome outfits. Today: grey and hot pink polka dot socks, pink leggings, fitted nike tee with a liberty of london dress over. Topped with a blue polka dot cardigan and vintage cowgirl boots. Can’t forget the three sizes too small vintage disney cap she found of Bj’s in our garage sale stuff.
-Dance, dance, dance. Talking about it. Picking out the perfect music for it. Collecting leaves as props for her to wave around. Watching So You Think You Can Dance while she half closes her eyes and dances around with the music.
-Definitely knows what is expected of her. If she forgets to do something drilled into her she says, “Oh mama. I forgot to put my napkin on my lap before I started eating, I’m so silly!” “I almost walked around [inside] with my shoes on, I’m so silly!”
-Working on giving her more responsibility. Taking dishes back to the kitchen, helping mama get things, brushing her own teeth in the morning, etc.
-Bedtime rock star. I still can’t believe how well bedtimes have worked out the last few months. We almost always skip silent reading time now. Our routine goes: upstairs, change, clean up, brush teeth, put away any random thing that is out, pick out books, 3 books (split between mama and papa), lights out, fan on low with music, mama or papa cuddle for a few songs. Then we leave her door open and go back up later to crank her fan all the way up, turn off her music and shut her door most of the way. Usually she’s asleep straight to morning. She still wets occasionally. Mostly when she’s really tired and just doesn’t wake up to take herself. Sometimes this upsets her but usually she just asks for help getting cleaned up.
-Rest time. Going well, mostly. We have rough days, and I still push her too late occasionally so she’s over tired when she gets up there. Never good. She has fallen asleep only a handful of times since we switched naps for rest. Two hours is the average we leave her up there to play alone. She starts with 25 minutes of quite reading time in her bed to settle her down (we use this timer so she knows when it’s up).
-Almost anything can be fixed with a Bandaid. Plain is preferred for now.
-Not liking papa going back to work after a week vacation (at home). “Can I keep him company in his room?”
-Usually so sweet she likes to throw in an occasional “I don’t like you!” in a mean voice. It’s very hard to take someone this cute seriously when she says that.
-Starting to notice how other people feel. Today she told me that, “The guy in the blue jacket looks sad.”
-Learning so much! She tells me when she sees bees pollinating flowers, and what they are doing it for, “mama those bees are pollinating so we can have strawberries!”. Starting to want to count things up, first time she’s really shown any interest in numbers. Surprisingly I realized by accident that she could do some simple addition and subtraction. She puts out all the napkins, and when we have one clean out but three people she will tell me we need two more; little stuff like that.
-When she turns 18 I am going to have to give her a huge basket full of gum. She sees any of mine and asks me to, “save it for when I’m grown up and I can have gum.”
I’ll probably keep thinking of things to add to this. I just love her little personality. I’m tired some days and we can push each other’s buttons, but we mostly get on so well.