Anna is three!

Anna turned three today.  This post is going to be short and sweet because we sent "two" out with a bang and wow do I need to go to bed.  

The boys got us up bright and early this morning.  Not sure if they were anticipating the onslaught of presents or just wanted to make sure we started the day off with a bang.  

Anna chose her pink and green dress that Grandma and Zeke brought her from France.  She's been choosing it every day since it arrived but I've been telling her it was a birthday dress, not an every day dress. She remembered!  She added a red sweatshirt because that's how Anna rolls. 

After breakfast of pink pancakes (her request, delivered on by her father and some red food coloring) we tackled the substantial pile of presents.

I captured a few of the early openings.  Some barrettes and a t-shirt from Uncle Nat and Danise, big hit. (All six barrettes went straight in and stayed in all day.)

Coloring books and pens from GG and GPapa

 Eli, watching the scene intently.

BIG favorite - a Unicornio and fairy picked out just for her by Sarah Jane.  SJ knew just what her sis would love and boy did she love this one.

Anna's birthday was somewhat princess/fairy themed.  Princess stickers, princess paper dolls, princess fairy, a "Ba-Bi-Di-Bo" (magic wand) from  Aunt Ellie, a princess castle and princess puzzle from Mom and Dad and the crowing princess gift below from Aunt Whitney.  Hugely enjoyed by all the ladies in the house.

 Here's some pictures of the big unveiling of the princess castle.  Big hit.

After this, no pictures.  Too much birthday set in and Dave and I had our hands full.  So did Grandma, Zeke, Aunt Whitney and Aunt Ellie.  We had beach time with a picnic, birthday cake at the beach, more beach time, attempted (unsuccessful on all four - five including me - counts) nap time, melt down time, trip to the store with dad then dinner and epic bedtime.  I took pictures of the better part of the day.  Unfortunately that part ended at 10am.  For the record, Anna was equally responsible with her siblings for the full hands, although Sarah Jane might actually get more credit.  It is apparently very hard to be almost five, three days away from your birthday and have to watch someone open a large number of presents many of which are identical to ones with your name on them, even if the birthday girl is an amazingly good sharer.  Something Sarah Jane will need to deal with for the rest of her life.  Didn't make today any easier for the rest of us though.

Despite the difficult ending, we had a lovely day with Anna.  She is a dear sweet little girl, a fantastic sister and most of the time a total riot.  We've loved knowing her this year and we're looking forward to Anna at Three!

Anna at two and a half

I also owe an update on Anna.  "Anna-at-two-and-a-half" should now be titled "Anna at nearly three" but we'll leave it as is and call it good.

Anna has met lots of important milestones since I last wrote her update.  First off, she potty trained herself in January in a mere three days.  One day she refused to wear a diaper during the day.  Two nights later she refused to wear a diaper at night and that was it.  Just like that.  She's had a few slip-ups (though only during the day) mostly because she gets very excited about whatever she is doing and forgets to go but in general it was as effortless as could be.  Good thing as her parents were rather distracted by other small people.  When she does make it to the potty (nearly always) she says, "I didn't have an accident Mom!" and when she doesn't make it to the potty she says, "I had an accident but that's ok mom, these things happen," with her signature Anna head tilt, hands on her hips and grown up voice.

Anna can do her own "clicks" on her car seat (a HUGE advance for me) and she has also kicked her bottle habit.  She still has milk three times a day (warmed up with a straw) but our mornings no longer look like this:

Anna loves many, many things.  Here's a list of a few:

1) Music and singing: Anna is a huge fan of singing and knows the words to lots of songs. She always asks for music, Cinderella music in the morning and Sound of Music soundtrack in the car.  We might be approaching the world record for number of times listened to "Doe a Deer."  The other day I confessed to Dave that sometimes when I get back into the car after dropping the girls off at school, I forget to turn it off and catch myself half way down the hill singing "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..."  Dave looked at me funny until I looked at him funny back and he too confessed to (more than once) singing with Julie in an empty car...  Add that to things we never thought we'd do five years ago.

2) Dressing up and princesses: Anna LOVES dressing up.  She wears the princess dresses we got from Uncle Matt and Aunt Lauri every possible moment from the second she gets up until bed time.  For a while she insisted on wearing them to bed.  When she isn't wearing them (I wouldn't let her wear them to school) she dresses herself in several layers - dress, second dress, skirt and pants.  She went through a phase of never leaving the house without her raincoat and boots, no matter the weather and she can usually be found in her ladybug wings.  When she arrives at school her first stop is the back room where she fetches a particular dress up dress and a pink cat purse.  She puts it on over whatever she's wearing and carries the purse all day.  Lately she's started smuggling Teacher Bari's dress up clothes home under her normal clothes.  I use the word "normal" loosely.  Teacher Alison gave us a big bag of hand me downs from her daughters, size six.  Pretty much all Anna wears.  Here are some of my favorite Anna outfits:

This was taken at 7:03am - it was her third outfit of the morning:

3) Dora, Boots and Unicornio: Every once in a while, usually when someone is sick or we're on a long car ride or plane, we let the girls watch Dora.  Anna LOVES Dora and Boots and given how much she talks about it you'd think she was on a steady diet.  The other day I asked who she wanted to invite to her birthday party.  "Emma and Ella and Dora and Boots."  Every night when I ask her what she's going to dream about she says "Unicornio! How bout that Mom?"

4) Reading and books: Anna LOVES reading.  She can sit still by herself for nearly an hour flipping through books.  No matter what kind of chaos is going on around her (and there is often a great deal of chaos,) Anna can simply disappear into her own world. 

She does it at home and at school.  She gets a bit pile of books and carefully looks at each page.  As I mentioned before we've just started reading a chapter book and Anna is entranced.  She has added Betsy-Tacy to her pile of books and will sit quietly and thumb through every page looking carefully at the little black and white pictures.  When Betsy and Tacy's older sisters call "Betsy... Tacy..." to come to dinner, Anna calls "Betsy... Tacy...."  Anna has a very hard time going to sleep at night (she should drop her nap but the late afternoon gets really ugly.)  Every night when she gets in bed I deliver a big pile of books which she carefully looks through and then tosses on the floor.  Her favorite at the moment is Eloise.  

5) Counting: Anna can count!  And not just recite the numbers in order but actually point to things and count them.  I've heard her get all the way up to 13.  I'm really impressed.  I know someone else that didn't do that until she was four. 

6) Life: Anna thinks just about everything is pretty great.  Here she is, thinking something is great:

Things she thinks great includes "her kids", especially Emma, Ella and Sinjin.  Her teachers (Bari and Alison).  Pickle (Zeke and Grandma's dog, always gets a mention when I ask who she loves.) Her sister (she pretty much tolerates her brothers at this point but SJ is a different story.) Her grandparents.

With three of her favorites:

With another favorite:

She also loves purple, her "poka-da" blankie and her huge "mommy bear." 

Despite all the princesses and dress up, Anna is pretty tough.  Don't mess with this one:

She somehow got a second degree burn on her arm and never said anything.  She thinks running into the wall is pretty funny.  When she hangs out with the four and five year olds at Sarah Jane's school she is always in the middle of the pack and more often than not the center of attention.  If there is a bouncy house, game over, Anna is gone.  See picture of insanely big waterslide containing said two year old as evidence of said toughness:

Anna is very reasonable.  Weirdly so.  I'm always surprised when she asks for something and I say no, bracing myself for a big fight, and she looks at me all stubborn and mad and then says, "ok" and runs off to do something else.  My prior mothering experience has not led me to believe that "ok" is a possible outcome. 

One of my favorite things about Anna is that she always says, "I be 'cused mom?" at dinner and carefully carries her plate to the sink.  Every time that happens I feel like I've added to the universe.  She used to eat her food but she is now entering into a no eating phase.  Sigh.  Cooking for non eaters detracts from the feeling of adding to the universe. 

Despite the non eating, Dave and I have thoroughly enjoyed the back half of two.  We're looking forward to seeing what three will bring.

Sarah Jane at two-and-a-half, and Sarah Jane at three, just for fun.

All about Anna

Dearest reader - unless you are a grandparent, a doting aunt or a father who is obligated to read every word, this post is too long, but if you scroll through there are some fun pictures at the end.

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

 So THRILLED to be on the merry-go-round, she could not get enough at the birthday party.

 Anna's cake.

 Blowing out the candles

 Chocolate cake

 Still considering, she might have to go in for another bite...

 Opening presents on her real birthday - her first tennis racket (from Aunt Kiki and Uncle Geoff - thank you!)

 Showing off her new ride

 Hiking at Echo Lake for Zeke's birthday.  I call this our LDS photo op.

 Truckin' with dad

 Ice Cream reward at the end

 Sisters.

The stairs Anna fell down this summer.  It's tough to be the middle kiddo.  No one pays attention to you.  She held on to her tooth brush and tooth paste all the way down and her first (tearful) words at the bottom were "teeth."  Luckily she still had all of hers.

Anna - Month 7!

Three things to note this month:
1) I went back to work which was highly traumatic, mostly for me (Anna adjusted magnificently, nothing seems to phase her)
2) We all got very, very sick and by all, I mean all (Anna, Sarah Jane, Elizabeth, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Zeke.  All the ladies seemed to get it worse than the men. It has been a nasty cold.  Everyone is now better (except me.)
3) As a result we have no pictures (hopefully I will get better organized going forward)

Anna is sitting up, sort of eating, thinking about pushing herself up and generally enjoying her days with Elizabeth, Sarah Jane and Owen.  She is getting slightly more regular in terms of sleeping both at night and during the day (though the cold messed everything up) and she continues to get bigger and bigger.  I think she's starting to notice who the people are in her life and she is particularly fond of Sarah Jane.  She loves the "office" and can push herself up to standing and balance without holding on which she is very proud of (and likes to be noticed when she does it.)

Anna in "The Office"

Anna & Elizabeth


Sat 2/20
Anna had dinner at 690 and was quite taken with pickle who was very patient with the Anna kiss (grab, twist and hold)

Sun 2/21
Anna has stopped sleeping in the crib for her afternoon nap though she has failed to inform us why.

Mon 2/22
Anna survived her mother's first day back at work in good spirits. Her mother is less hardy.

Tuesday 2/23
Anna is fully settling into her nighttime routine with bath at 6:15 which she loves - there is LOTS of splashing and kicking and she is very tempted to turn over.  On the couple of times she has squirmed out of my hold and gotten a face full of bathwater, she flips back over with no crying.  She is totally unphased.  After bath at 6:15, I read her goodnight moon, feed her just a bit more, sing her two songs (Red River Valley and Mr. Moon) and then put her down.  So far no fussing, right to sleep.  Feels good to have a routine again.

Wed 2/24
Despite happy go-to-bed night time routine, Anna has resumed 4am crying.  Last night it went from 4:15 until 5 when I finally caved and fed her.  Hmmmm.

Thurs 2/25
Anna is so happy and giggly when I come home it is impossible not to be infected with her joy.  She gives me the biggest smile and then remembers to take a bite of whatever Elizabeth is feeding her for dinner.  Today it was peas with some pear mixed in (she approved.)  She smiles with her whole being - she bangs her feet, waves her hands, wiggles her head, cackles, coos and crows and bats her sparkly little eyes.  It's like an instant spa for her weary mama. 

Fri 2/26
Anna is enjoying peas with pears mixed in.  She is getting very good at eating and has now tackled rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas, peas, pears, apple, squash and sweet potato.  All the good stuff.

Sat 2/27
Anna is on the Little Train with her (now) very brave big sister.  Anna is unphased (as usual.)

Sun 2/28
Anna is now using rolling as a strategic move.  She can fit multiple rolls together in order to get to a specific object.  At this rate, crawling will be obsolete.

Mon 3/1
Anna is not doing so well on the nap front. Elizabeth is not pleased. I think she would like more of a break than Anna gives her.


Tues 3/2
Anna is doing great falling asleep these days. She goes right down at 7 with no protests. What a relief! I like this phase.


Wed 3/3
Anna is not doing so well sleeping through the night. She is up between 4:30 and 5:30 and requires feeding. While this is painful for her mama, it means that I actually have time to feed her and get myself out of the house on time in the morning which is frightening. I actually have to get up at 4:30 to make that happen? Not good.


Thurs 3/4
Anna loves to flail her arms and legs around in the bath. She starts doing it as soon as she hears the bath get turned on. She also is getting better at not trying to roll over in the bath. This is an improvement over last week.


Fri 3/5

Sat 3/6
Anna was very cooperative and went straight to bed on sat night while Jenny and Dean and Amy and Ben were over for dinner. Thank yoiu Anna!


Sun 3/7
Anna is in the car headed back to the little train to search for the stroller her mama left there last weekend. Her mother feels that perhaps her mind is lost. (Mission accomplished, stroller found. Mind still unknown.)

Mon 3/8
Anna slept all the way until 530 this morning which is much better than the now non-exception to the rule of between 4 and 5 with another wake up at 3. What are we doing wrong Anna????

Tues 3/9
Anna is sick with the same disease her big sister (and now Grandma and Elizabeth) have. She cried all morning after eating at 5 which is very unlike her. Usually she is all smiles in the am.

Wed 3/10
Anna and her mama (and her sister and Elizabeth) are sick sick sick.  No one is sleeping.  Everyone is coughing.  It is NO FUN.

Thursday 3/11
Anna still does the funny thing with her hands when she gets agitated, sort of rotating them at the wrist compulsively.  Wonder if that is going to stick?

Fri 3/12
Still sick. Nothing more to say.

Sat 3/13
Anna is disturbingly enthralled by Elmo on TV.  Mommy is disturbingly unable to do anything outside of push play.  Actually I couldn't even do that, Daddy had to push play.  We are a mess.

Sun 3/14
Anna slept almost all day today, I think maybe 18 hours?  Unfortunately most of it was during the day.  We need to shift that pattern...

Mon 3/15
Anna had a very bad Sunday night with two bouts of coughing that lasted 30 minutes + and involved throwing up and turning purple which scared the bejezus out of her mother.  Dr. Cutherbertson was very reassuring and told us to spray saline solution up Anna's nose.  She is not a fan of that solution.

Tues 3/16
Anna is not sleeping at night period.  Up from 8:30 to 11 last night, then from 2:30 to 4 and then again at 5.  We have regressed entirely and just feed her whenever she makes a peep.  I've run out of ideas but if she feels anywhere as bad as I feel I can't imagine saying no to anything.  She is really pretty cheerful all things considered.

Wed 3/17
Anna welcomed her Nana yesterday who came to stay and save us from this dreadful cold.  Nana is in charge of nights and last night Anna was pretty nice to her.  She is seeming a bit better.  Hopefully we are kicking this thing!

Thurs 3/18
Anna was NOT at all nice to her Nana last night.  She had her up for at least an hour and a half (Nana lost count) starting at 1:23, and was up before that too.  She was coughing coughing coughing and crying crying crying and I think Tylenol finally worked it's magic.  I'm not sure because I was semi-sleeping through it all.  I would have said blissfully sleeping through it all but there is nothing blissful about this cold.

Fri 3/19
Anna seems much better!  She was up at 4 to eat but went right back now.  Still lots of coughing in the morning and we've been having her sit in Owen's chair in the bathroom during showers to get it all lose but she is happier and definitely seems less sick.  She gives us big smiles and continues to refuse to eat any food.  Anna is NOT a fan of mushed up food of any kind.  She's very good at playing defense.  She purses her lips and frowns at us and nothing gets in.