What Kylie is reading- Week of Oct 12

Hmmmmm.....no comments on Saturday's post about sitting still or her artwork. No comments on my cold. Hmmmm.

I suppose I'll show you a widget of what Kylie has been reading.


And some hat pictures:




And a scrapbook page. Music class

Saturdays are for snuggling

Saturdays are for snuggling in our bedroom letting Kylie watch little shows and play with kids apps on our iPhones.


And for playing peek-a-boo.


So sweet.

Now you'll have to forgive me. I've caught a terrible head cold. I need to go moan.

Oh, but here is a video of Kylie singing her abc's (after she eats some Dibbs ice cream for dessert). She still says, "Elmo, Elmo, P".

Learning to glue and sit still

(Picture taken at Burke Lake Park at the top of the slides.)

I love our Wednesday art class. It's obvious that the teacher puts a lot of thought and creativity into her lesson plans and the crafts the kids will make. Kylie and I have a lot of fun and enjoy a sweet, close connection with one another during the class.

We are five weeks into our ten week course and I've noticed some changes with Kylie.

In the first week, it was a challenge for Kylie to keep still during the story time. Our timetable for the class is craft, story, finger-rhymes, story, move to a song, craft again and then the cycle repeats. So during the 45 minute class, there are about 4 stories read and 4 crafts.

The kids are supposed to sit together on mats in front of the teacher while she reads. The first class, Kylie lasted about 15 seconds into the first story and then she popped up and wandered away. I brought her back. She wandered away again. We stepped out of the room and had a "talk". The second story had a lot of me putting on my stern face and pointing at her to sit and whispering in her ear for her to sit and it seemed like it would never end.

The rest of the class was the same.

The next week was the same.

And Karen and I had some lively conversations about it. We were curious that none of the other kids had any trouble sitting placidly by their moms during story time. Was this because they had attended other classes like this before? Was it because they were in part-time pre-school and had already learned that behavior? We discussed how reasonable it was to expect a 2 1/2 yr old to sit still. We admired Kylie's spirit and her non-conformist attitude. And we wondered how much we should push proper good-student behavior with discipline.

And then Karen and I laughed at how we could spend an hour speaking passionately on such an insignificant topic and how lucky Kylie was to have two moms who cared so damn much.

I suspected that part of the reason Kylie was popping up and away was because she could see it pushed my buttons. So my strategy became to acknowledge with full smiles her good behavior when she was sitting still. And to guide her back to the mats with a calm, bland face every time she wandered away.

By the fourth class she was sitting still for two of the four stories. By the fifth class, she sat still for all of them.


But I still find the whole thing kind of fascinating. Kylie loves stories. She brings them to Karen and I so that we will read to her and she pours over them herself. But she doesn't care one whit about the ones the teacher reads to the class. Even when she's sitting still, she's looking at the other kids or parents, rarely the teacher. The rest of the room is a bland, windowless, toyless, box. Just a room with tables and chairs and that's it. So it isn't that she's being lured away by some cool toy. And she doesn't try to speak to anyone else. She just quietly wanders away. Fascinating. Makes me want to crawl in her head and see what's going on.

Anyway, she's doing better with it. AND she's learning how to glue. She's learned about when she needs just a dot of glue and when she needs to spread a bunch around. She's having lots of fun gluing and it is no wonder when she gets to make cool things like this monster:

and get to glue down macaroni

and get to make a mouse. There is a little girl named Amelia who sits next to Kylie during class. She and her mom have taught Kylie and I a neat trick about gluing. After we glue down something like the mouse's ear, Kylie holds the ear still and counts to three. Amelia and Kylie had fun counting to three together.


Our other letter of the day on Wednesday was "W" and we made a web. Out of colored spaghetti noodles. I'm not kidding you! The teacher had taken some sort of die and colored a bunch of cooked noodles with it into all these vibrant different colors. The noodles weren't sticky or cold. They were warm and bouncy. And I just laughed with delight when I saw them. And gave the teacher a huge smile and said, "You are so cool. I never would have done this with Kylie on my own and it's simply awesome". And Kylie got to make a "web" by gluing noodles.

It looks very strange hanging on the fridge but it was a lot of fun.

Kylie also made two art projects at home with me. This castle.

And this bird with pretend birdseed.
.
And I made this scrapbook page:
Summer days

Slide Mania

And two recent scrapbook pages:
Move

Two-page spread Memories

Five little things

My jazzy girl is telling someone that she is two.

#1. Kylie has started calling me "Muh-maayyyy". I don't know if it's because she's had a runny nose or if she just likes the sound of it but now I'm no longer Mommy. I'm Mummy.

#2. Pipe cleaner bracelets. Kylie learned how to make a pipe cleaner bracelet in art class this past week.

And she was so happy with it. She put the bracelet on her dolls arms and legs. And her stuffed animals arms and legs. She tried to put it on the cats and when that didn't work, she decided she would just roll around on the floor with glee- like a little puppy or something. I'm telling you-she was one happy kiddo.

So of course, I had to run right out and by her some pipe cleaners and beads.

I've tried to get Kylie interested in lacing cards and beads on a string but she doesn't yet have the dexterity for them. But because the pipe cleaner is firm, she can hold it and thread her beads herself. This craft is a winner!

#3. Footprint ghosts. Meg over at Tea & Brie posted this great little project. You take a painted footprint and turn it into a ghost. Just a fun little Sunday project that wasn't nearly as messy as I had feared it would be.



#4Long-sleeved nightgowns for Fall. Oh she needed some new nightgowns. I didn't realize how worn her others were until I compared them to the new ones. I like Disney Store nightgowns the best.

Before, Kylie liked to take early mornings slow. We would read a few stories and snuggle together and meander a bit. Now Kylie is out of her room like a shot. She has really important things to do, you know. Like feed her Nana Bear a pretend breakfast sandwich.


#5. Pods? Cones? These are falling from the trees in our backyard. Can anyone tell me if they are considered seed pods or some sort of pine cone? Regardless, Kylie loves them.



What five little things are new for you these days?

What Kylie is reading- Week of Oct 5

Shy Little Bunny by Nick Ellsworth
This was the most popular book this week. It was given to us by my mom. It's about a bunny who helps his family build a burrow and then helps some new friends build a burrow. There are 4-5 sentences per page. The best part was that our version of the book has embossment on every page. So Kylie gets to feel the bunnies and flowers as I read her the story.


Curious George at the Aquarium by Magret & H.A. Rey's
Karen and Kylie read this one together several times. There are around 6 sentences per page which is just right for Kylie. As I watch them read it together, Kylie keeps her eyes glued to the pages. As an added bonus, we have a little Curious George doll that she likes to play with once she finishes the story.


Where's the Poop? by Julie Markes
This has around 3 lift-the-flaps per page. The story has all sorts of different animals in it. Each animal parent will ask their child if they need to poop. The baby animal will respond that it has already pooped and your kiddo gets to lift the flap and find it. This has been a favorite book in our house for a while. We read it several times this week.


Oh No, Gotta Go #2 by Susan Middleton Elya
The fun thing about this one is that there are several Spanish words per page. Kylie thinks it's funny when I say hija. Yeesh--two bathroom books for Kylie's favorites this week. Oh Joy. Oh Bliss.


Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli
I think I liked this more than Kylie. Yet she let me read it to her three times this past week. The book has two pages that ask the reader about what hats they wear and then it shifts to the majority of the story which is about famous people's hats. It has an AABB rhyme scheme (similar to Dr. Seuss) which makes it easy to read aloud. The illustrations are incredible. Kylie particularly liked that there were animals on every page and that the animals were also wearing hats. This will be a fun one to get again.


There are cats in this book by Viviane Schwarz
Cats! Yarn! Blankets! Some of MY favorite things. Again, I think I liked this one more than Kylie (since I'm a cat and yarn lover) but she enjoyed it too. There are cut-outs on each page that Kylie could turn which made the book more interactive. She liked the end of the story where the cats get wet. The cats ask you to blow on them to dry them off. Kylie blew on the pages and then laughed each time when she turned the page and saw that the cats were now all fluffy. I give this one two thumbs up.


Bless Me by Grace Maccarone
Kylie almost knows this book by heart. It's the one we often turn to read before her afternoon nap. "Bless the moon, bless the sky..." so simple and so sweet.

There were some books that we got from the library that Kylie wasn't interested in such as:
Melanie Walsh's books Do Monkeys Tweet and Do Donkeys Dance?
The Monster at the end of this Book (Grover) by Stone
Our Library by Eve Bunting
Elmer Takes Off by David McKee - although we might try this one again later.

I hope you've had a great week reading and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Games

YES! We've entered the stage where Kylie can understand the premise of a game. Hurray! I love games and I'm so excited that I get to play them with Kylie.

Here are three that we are currently playing in our house.
Hide and Seek Matching Game.

I bought this beautiful memory game/matching tile set at a specialty toy store in Oregon. We've made up our own game of hide and seek with them. I "hide" one of each of the animals in Kylie's room--on the floor and on her bed as she hides her eyes in the family room and counts to ten. Then I hand her tile and tell her to bring me back the matching one. I encourage her to make the animal sounds of the animal she's looking for. The fun part is that this game is on the run. Kylie runs to down the hall (see picture above) to find the tile and runs back to me. Good exercise and great fun!

Puppy Pals Bingo
I bought this one on sale at Target and we are loving it! There are two-sided bingo cards with pictures of dog houses. The dog houses have polka dots or stripes or such in one color and a tag painted on the door with another shape on it. There are cards with the game. You turn over a card and see if any of your dog houses on your bingo card have either the shape or the color on the card. If so, you get a little puppy dog tile to put on your doghouse. The first person who gets three in a row, wins. Although when we play it, we keep going until Kylie covers the entire board. That way, she wins every time. It takes us less than 10 minutes to play a game. And she usually wants to play it twice in a row.

Hi Ho Cherry O!
I got this one on sale at Target too. This one is still a little advanced for Kylie but we are working on learning it. She mostly wants to put cherries in all the buckets. But she likes flicking the spinner and it's helping her learn her numbers. And she thinks it is fun to say "Hi Ho Cherry O!"

Our last game is "Romp in the Leaves". It's free and it's delightful.





Are you playing games with your little one? Which ones to do like best?

Sun comes up, clouds come up

While Kylie and I were eating breakfast yesterday morning, Kylie was humming to herself and looking out the window. And then she made up a little song about the morning. She sang this song to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" and her lyrics were:

The sun comes up and the clouds come up.
The sun comes up and the clouds come up.
The sun comes up and the clouds come up
and the dark goes down.

Precious! Just one of those quick moments when I marvel at her innocence and her sense of wonder and creativity.





We've been making great progress with her potty training. We're down to two diapers a day--one for naptime and one for bedtime. The rest of the time, Kylie is in underpants. For the past few weeks, it's been more a matter of training me than her.

As you know, we have a class or time at the park every morning. As I'm getting Kylie dressed, I have a moment of tension where I'm afraid she'll have an accident in public. This probably would not affect her but would embarrass me. So this tense/nervous part of me wants to put her in a diaper. But I give myself a little speech to the tune of "We have spare pants in the car. It's not the end of the world if she has an accident. So get a grip Wendy. Wearing underpants is the best thing for her right now. Get a grip and chill out".

The "chill out" part of my little mental speech doesn't always work; but I'm trying.

Anyway, Kylie is doing great with it. I'm not pushing the sleep-time diaper yet. Instead I'm just letting us all settle in to good potty training during the day. But I have a glimmering glimpse of a future when diaper pictures like this will be a thing of the past.