June '12

Anna standing.

At the end of May, Anna began pulling herself up on low shelves and chairs. My the first week of June she pulled herself up to standing on couches, bookshelves, chairs, whatever. Occasionally she'll attempt to stand up in the middle of the room. . . it won't be long! She is also willing to take steps when I'm holding her up. 

 "Stairs, why not. I can do that!" -Anna

 Anna LOVES the tub. I actually have a hard time keeping her out now that she's figured out that it's behind the shower curtain. I used to let her play in the bathroom while I showed but now she comes peeking through the curtain wanting in! Back to early morning or naptime showers for me. I'm glad her and Alice have so much fun in the tub together though!

 4 Day Visit from Uncle Matt

 Backyard fun in the pool.

 Strawberry Picking

 Bouncing at the Strawberry Farm

 Visiting the animals at the Strawberry Farm

Alice has several very good 'friends' that accompany her all over the house and on various adventures at home. Occasionally one gets to come with in the car somewhere, but usually they are just at home 'friends'. Here they are all lined up under the piano Anna holding A.J., Sarah, Sunshine bear, puppy, monkey, Clifford, Lucy, and Alice.

Anna now loves crawling and sitting under the piano just like Alice did when she was Anna's age, which has caused it to resurface as a new play spot for Alice. 

Alice frequently has to get all her friends lined up just right before she / they can go to sleep. 

Sprinkler fun! This was Alice's first experience playing in our sprinkler and she had fun. Anna found the water to be to cold and didn't enjoy it, however.

Alice LOVES to read. She could listen to me read all day long. At the end of each book she says, "one more book" as she jumps down and goes to get another, and another, and another. Recently she's started 'reading' books herself and it's SO much fun to listen too. I can usually identify the book. Her favorites are Dora, Thomas, and Curious George, along with whatever she finds particularly interesting from our weekly library trip. She always finishes each book with "de en" (the end). Many books get read over and over and it's fun to hear how much of the book she can remember as we read together and I allow her to fill in the blank or as she reads it herself and I listed from the other room.

Here I was cleaning the bathroom and she thought she should read to me while I cleaned. It certainly made my work more enjoyable!

Let the questioning begin!!! 

"WHY, MOM?"

"WHAT THAT IS?"

"WHAT SAY THIS?"

Alice is full of questions and observations these days. I was quite excited the first day that "Why, mom?" began, seemingly out of the blue. For a couple days it was "why" to everything and I did my best to explain everything I could to her. I remember when I was in high school / early college and the little boy I babysat was in this stage. At that time I failed to appreciate the vast amount of knowledge the little boy was trying to absorb. It's much different as a parent, however. I love that she wants to figure things out and learn why about so many different things. 

I have been working with Alice on her alphabet (mostly capital letters) very causally as she expresses interest. We color in the letter, glue things to the letter, or draw letters outside with sidewalk chalk. Many weeks I use a particular letter of the alphabet as inspiration when we go to the library. For example, last week we focused on the letter T and got books on trains, tunnels, turtles, and tractors (a mixture of fiction and non-fiction). It helps expand our book collection and makes for some interesting reads (I learned a lot about tunnels last week, and cranberries several weeks ago!)  When we're reading I have her point out at least one of the letter we are learning on each page. She seems to love it and wants to learn more. At this point, I don't feel the need to push her at all, I just let her do as much as she wants and she keeps wanting to learn more. At breakfast and lunch she has taken an interest in what the cereal box or other food boxes say, "What say this?" We look for letters she knows and I read (over and over) all the words she points to. 

Anna now has teeth! Over the last month Anna got her middle two bottom teeth and her middle two top teeth just poked through. I still need to get a picture of this, but wanted to note it for future reference.