I'm going back to work next Wednesday and frantically clicking through my checklist. One of those items is to capture who the girls are at the moment, so here's a post about Anna which I intended to write at her 2nd birthday back in August....
Anna is a ton of fun right now, mainly due to word learning explosion that is happening right in front of us. As soon as she started school in September her ability to communicate changed dramatically. She is so fun to listen to right now, partly because of what she says and partly because of how she says it. Here are some of my favorite things that Anna says -
j-Jane: Until this week, this is how she said Sarah Jane, she says this ALL THE TIME
Sah-Wah-Jaaaane?: This week she figured out the "S". She now says this even more often. I think she likes how it feels in her mouth. Also, she loves her sister. My favorite thing to hear in the morning (even if it does happen at 5:30am) is "Sah-Wah-Jaaaane? you play wid me?"
Here's my favorite Anna conversation - we have this all the time:
Mom: Anna, where you going?
Anna: Da zoo (body language: duh, where do you think I'm going)
Mom: What are you going to see there?
Anna: Tows and Doats! (Cows and Goats)
As you can see, she's having some issues with first letters. She also has issues with prepositions. Today she told me, "My do it, I self" when she wanted to go upstairs by herself.
Another favorite Anna conversation:
Anna: Da bebe love me. Eli love me. Roby love me. I lika da bebes.
I don't know where her Jamaican genes came from.
A final favorite Anna-ism:
Anna: Whatcha dooooin?
Mommy: I'm xxxxx. What are you doing?
Anna: I right here!
One of Anna's favorite books right now is Fancy Nancy. We read this all the time. She likes to repeat the fancy words in it. Some of her favorites are "Fuchsia" "Ohh-la-la" "Merci" and "Posh" As soon as we turn to the page with the word she points and says it.
On that note, Anna LOVES reading books and we have definitely graduated from board books to real books (so much better.) Her favorites at the moment are Fancy Nancy, Pancakes for Breakfast, Bedtime for Mommy and Wynkin, Blynkin and Nod. Anna loves the parts of books where bad things happen, e.g., when Fancy Nancy falls and spills her ice cream or when the lady who is making pancakes for breakfast comes home to find her dog and cat have spilled all her ingredients. We have to look at that page over and over and Anna likes to say "OHHHH NOOOOOOOO!", with her hands on her cheeks and then she gives the dog and a cat a time out.
Anna loves to find the moon in any book that we read but she is terrified of the real moon. When we see it we have to sing to it so it goes away and she gravely reports that the moon is stuck in the sky. "Is stuck."
Here is a typical day in Anna's life:
Anna wakes up early, sometime between 5:30 and 6 though with daylight savings that has crept up even earlier. She calls for her bottle which is promptly delivered (I know, we are such wimps), along with her sister's. Her parents then go back to bed and hope/pray that she will go back to sleep. She never does. She and Sarah Jane then play until 7 when mom and dad finally semi rejoin the world of the living. Anna loves to shower in the morning. Anna does not love to get dressed or put her diaper on. She is very good at using the potty and she does so all the time, especially when she knows there are jelly beans in the equation. She also, given half a second, will run to any private place (the boys room, daddy's closet, her rocking chair) and promptly relieve herself so she needs to be watched rather closely.
At 8am she comes downstairs for breakfast. Anna does not like oatmeal. She does like eggs and toast. She eats her toast from the top down, starting with the jam layer. This is an effective, but somewhat messy approach. After breakfast Anna usually requests music "Lafi Lafi Lafi" (i.e., Rafi.) Anna LOVES music and singing and she knows all the words to to lots of songs and sings a long.
At this point we begin the morning wrestle into socks, shoes and sweatshirts, loading up with school lunches, taking vitamins and heading out of the door into the car and into the car seat. This process is not fun for anyone involved. At 8:50, exactly 20 minutes after I intended to leave, we leave. Sometimes Anna is lucky and Jeffery, our very patient neighbor from across the street makes an appearance. Anna likes to stand on the steps and yell "Jeff Er Y Jeff Er Y!!!" over and over and over.
We drop her at school (she has her second bottle on the way to school) and she plays and plays and plays until pick up time at 1:30. Anna loves school and is always very pleased to be dropped off. I always ask for a hug and kiss and sometimes she tips her cheek up to me and allows me to kiss it but usually I get ignored as she runs straight to the puzzle table or the art table, her favorites. In the beginning of school we had some issues with Anna biting and were threatened with an expulsion (oh the panic! we would need a THIRD nanny.) She has now reigned in that behaviour and now when you ask Anna what she did at school she always reports, "No biting Emma." That is apparently the only thing she ever does at school, at least it's all we ever hear about.
After I pick Anna up we head home (more struggles with the car seat) and go straight upstairs for her third bottle and a nap. Anna used to be a champion fall asleeper but not so much anymore. Now she requires several books, several timeouts and usually Elizabeth who is apparently better at reading her to sleep. Anna loves pushing my "please oh please take a nap" button.
At 4pm Elizabeth wakes Anna up and they head straight out in the stroller to the park or the library or Studio Grow. At 6pm she returns, usually very cheerful and proceeds to either eat all her dinner or none of her dinner. There is no discernible pattern. At 6:30 Rafi is requested again. At 7pm she heads to the bath which she loves. At 7:15 we have dessert (fruit, followed by yogurt and honey), at 7:30 we read books and drink her last bottle, at 7:45 we brush teeth (so much fun these days), and at 8pm we attempt to get in bed. Anna is lately very afraid of the dark and insists that either Dave or I stay in the rocking chair "a while" which can range anywhere from 10 minutes to 50.
Despite the sleep time dramatics, Anna is so very fun right now. She is spunky, full of love, a great little sister, a loving and sometimes gentle big sister, fun to play with, learning every day, brave and funny. Anna is ALL CAPS; whether she loves it or hates it, she does it all the way.
Below are some photos of Anna's summer which never got posted. This this post should technically have been written at her 2nd birthday, now seems like a good time to post photos of her birthday party...
Checking out the cakes with Aunt Whitney
No comments:
Post a Comment