Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Kids Are Mirrors


The other day we were driving home from the grocery store and Charlotte was unhappy and crying. Audrey turned to her and said, very calmly, "Charlotte could you please quiet down. I can't hear the road." Charlotte continued to cry. Eventually, Audrey said to her (again, very calmly),"Charlotte, it looks like you're having a hard time. We're almost home." The latter is exactly the kind of thing Carol or I would say to one of them. Audrey went on to try to entertain Charlotte by being silly and sure enough in a few minutes she had Charlotte laughing.

The girls play together well quite a bit these days. They'll go on camp outs in Audrey's room in a fabric teepee we got from Uncle Bob, Aunt Torii and cousin Alex. They drag pillows and sleeping bags in and make the room dark and play with shadows they make with flashlights they got for Christmas. Or they'll just play with dolls in the living room for 30 minutes. It's wonderful.

Audrey has been learning the alphabet for probably a year. In the last month or two she has mastered the whole thing and can even recognize most letter in lowercase. Carol came up with the idea of using connect-the-dots exercises to get Audrey to start writing letters. She took to it right away and then started writing letters on her own. Next thing you know she was writing her name. You can see one of her first attempts in the photo album.

Charlotte's talking gets better every day. It's so nice to be able to understand what she wants most of the time. And it's extra frustrating to all of us now when we can't understand what she wants. Charlotte is also toilet training herself. She wants to be like her big sister.

We're having our annual nice February days. Every year we seem to get a couple of gorgeous sunny days this time of year. Usually they even get warm - up into the 60s. This year not quite so warm, but enough that Carol and the girls have been able to go to the beach and the playground and play in the sandbox and the dirt pile in the back yard.

Speaking of the dirt pile: we plan to landscape the back yard this spring. That includes removing the 14 yards of dirt that have been in a pile there since we built the garage. When we told Audrey the dirt pile was going to go away, she got very upset. She loves to play in it.

Audrey took one six-week series of swim lessons at the YMCA last summer but she didn't seem quite old enough for organized lessons. She just wanted to play. So we took some time off and we've just been having unstructured play in the pool every week. Now we've signed her up again and tonight was her first lesson in this series. There were supposed to be six kids in her class, but two didn't show up and two others were there but wouldn't get in the pool. So Audrey and one other girl got all the teacher's attention. Audrey did great, cooperating with all the teacher's instructions and trying everything the teacher asked except jumping from standing position at the edge of the pool. I'll work on that with her during family swimming. She also wants some goggles, which I think will help.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Charlotte's Speech is Accelerating

Charlotte has discovered the magic of language and her speech skills are really taking off. She's even putting together lots of two-word sentences and every once in a while three.

She'll now regularly say "Audrey's room" or "my room". Yesterday Carol was futzing with car seats and Charlotte said "Audrey's seat." This morning when I was serving her breakfast she rested the side of her head on her hands and said "Mommy sleeping".

Charlotte's stuffed puppy, who used to be called "puppy", is now "baby puppy". Charlotte loves to "sort" different sizes of the same animal. If she sees two different sized pictures of the same animal she'll point to them and tell you that they are "baby" and "mommy", or if there are three "daddy" might join them.

It used to be that if you asked Charlotte, "Can you say 'giraffe'?" (or whatever) when reading a book, she'd say, very adamantly, "No!" Recently she tries to say whatever word you're prompting her for.

Charlotte is also a neat person. She loves to clean her own face or wash her hands and she loves to put toys away where they belong.

Her moments of frustration over communication are getting further apart (but louder :))

I've mentioned those noticeable developmental leaps that children take - where all of a sudden one day they seem different than the day before. Charlotte just went through one of those. Language is part of what we notice, but she's also generally happier and more independent all of a sudden.

It's a joy watching the girls grow.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Audrey Turns Four


Today was Audrey's 4th birthday. Well, technically her 5th if you count the day she was actually born. Wow. It's hard to believe we have a four-year-old.

Carol tells the story that when she was afraid as the mother of a newborn, she'd remind herself that someday Audrey would be 4 and that particular set of fears would be gone. Here we are.

Audrey had a fantastic birthday. Carol spent the evenings this week making cake layers and then was up late last night assembling it. She made a 5-layer castle cake with ice cream cone towers at the corners. It had chocolate windows and doors and drawbridge, with a big 4 on top. It was gorgeous and Audrey was thrilled.

I blew up a whole bag of balloons last night and made a big pile of them in the living room. We could hear Audrey exclaim when she came out of her room this morning. She and I and Charlotte played in the balloons for a long time this morning before the party.

Carol had invited four of Audrey's friends for a party at our house from 11:00-1:00. Ian and Andrew are children of friends from when we were all single. Ian was born 2 weeks after Audrey and Andrew is a little older. Harper is Audrey's best friend from pre-school. And Molly is the daughter of friends that Carol I know from our dancing days at the Century Ballroom: Cori and Mark. Almost all of them brought a sibling and a parent or two.

Carol made little snack bowls for each kid and we made quesadillas (a real favorite lately). She also made a "sensory table" like at pre-school. She froze toy rings into various molds (cupcake tins, bundt pan) and the kids could work to get the ring melted out of the ice. The balloons were also a big hit. For a while the kids were rubbing balloons on their heads and sticking them to the wall and having great fun.

At noon they all sat down for cake and the beautiful castle got destroyed. The house got a lot quieter all of a sudden. But even when the kids were at full tilt the house didn't seem as chaotic as it had during previous gatherings. Maybe I'm just getting used to it.

Then it was on to gift opening. Audrey's friends gave her some great toys and she loved every one. After that the party wound down with kid hugs all around. Overall a great success we think.

For several months Audrey has been asking for a princess vanity she saw in an insert in a Disney DVD. Carol and I debated because it's entirely plastic and we'd prefer to get her something more "real". But her desire for it was so unwavering we finally decided that we would go with her taste instead of ours. Unfortunately when I assembled it last night the central feature (princesses that magically appear in the mirrors) didn't work. So after the party, while I slept on the sofa and Audrey watched a movie and Charlotte napped, Carol went back to the store and exchanged it. I assembled the new one while Aunt Betsy (my sister Elizabeth) played with the girls.

We had a nice dinner with just us and Elizabeth, and then Audrey opened "family" gifts. Aunt Betsy gave Audrey a new princess dress (she long ago outgrew her previous one and Charlotte wears it now, even though it's pretty decrepit). Grandma and Grandpa gave Audrey some princess accessories and some cool new clothes. Then we finally unveiled the vanity. Audrey loved it. She wanted to take it to bed with her.

Charlotte got a couple of small gifts too because we figured she probably wouldn't understand why only Audrey was getting loot. In the end, Audrey did a pretty good job of sharing her new toys with Charlotte.

We think it's interesting that Audrey loves princesses so much because she seems like a tomboy at heart. But they are definitely her favorite thing at present. We just go with it.

It felt like we (mostly Carol) put a lot more energy into this birthday than any previous one. When kids are two they barely appreciate the concept of birthday. At three they're getting a little more savvy. But this year Audrey was very aware of when her birthday was and what it meant (both the aging part and the gift part). She's been telling us for months what she wants for her birthday. The vanity was a constant, but also every time she saw something she wanted she'd add it to her imaginary list. So the party was a lot of work (again, mostly for Carol) but it felt like it really paid off and Audrey enjoyed "her special day" (her words!). Thanks, Carol, for all your creativity and work!

We went to bed early because we've both been up late the last two nights. But my brain wouldn't turn off, so here I am at 12:45 AM finishing up this post. That's one thing off my list! Maybe I can go to sleep now. Good night!