Elsa with lightswitch

Elsa 18 months

Elsa turned 18 months on Christmas Day. Every day we are learning more about her, about her interests, her preferences, and her personality. We are watching her explore the world and it is so cool!

She is a happy toddler, liking movement and music. While initially timid last year with large motor movement, she is wily with fine motor skills; she uses markers to draw and loves throwing and rolling and kicking balls. She is running, walking backward, tip-toeing, trying very hard to jump, and practicing walking down small steps. 

She enjoys opening the lower cupboards and pulling the bottles of oils, and spices out. She brings them to a step or a table and sets them up. We call it "Elsa's pantry." She also likes reaching into our utensil drawers and pulling out the chopsticks. I found some in the living-room yesterday. I also found a large pile of tissues in the bathroom trash-can--probably about 20 clean, unwrinkled tissues, piled together.

She takes after her mother in waking up rather begrudgingly and needing a bit of a transition phase from the sleep world to the waking one. And oh how she loves putting Sam's underwear on her head! No really, do not let that look fool you, she loves undie-hat time!

She mostly feeds herself these days, using a spoon and fingers. We've got the covered cup down solid and the uncovered cup is a work in (messy) progress. She loves cheese! Milk, fruit, meats, breads, sweet potato, spinach, squash. She's not too picky.

Her words are often soft, but she uses sign with bravado. 

Her signs include: more, all done, please, and eat.

She can say (if not the full word, at least the intention of it): mama, dada, "may-may," milk, play, all-done, up, down, stool, nose, eyes, hair, knee, gate, bath, bath-robe, bye-bye, knock-knock, hi, bird, ball, ba-ba, cheese, no.

She can point to her body parts on command: nose, eyes, ears, mouth, hair, neck, tummy, belly-button, knees, feet, toes, and hands. She will pull her socks off, unzip her sweater, and assists with dressing.

Elsa loves to play. She likes running around with her brother and shrieking. She loves resting in our laps and rolling on the floor. She's very tactile and is often finding small things on the floor, or on her feet, and will bring them to us, "um, um, um" she says to get our attention. Yes, that piece of lint or pine needle can go in the trash. Then she walks it to the trash can and puts it inside. She pretends to cook at our play stove and will also "feed" the baby.

She enjoys reading and lately has been into Goodnight Gorilla, Caps for Sale, The Mitten, Go Dog Go,  Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear?, and A Kiss Means I Love You.

Many Faces of Elsa

At the "Imagine! Children's Museum" in Everett, WA. It was amazing:

Elsa was really interested in all of the animals in the mural:

She's learned to zip and unzip her jackets and sweaters:

She was great company while I was raking leaves:

I love seeing this face look up at me!

Sam at Age 4

I took this photo of Sam in the car after swimming and realized that I could see a glimpse of him as a teenager. Maybe it's the detached look, or quite possibly the hoodie, but he just seemed older...

But he just turned four, not fourteen, so let's talk about who he is today: 

At this age, it's a little harder for me to describe how he is changing... he's achieved all the major milestones of physical and verbal development that one would expect for a four year old. Still, I find myself glancing at Kyle knowingly on a daily basis when Sam does and says things that are new and interesting. Here, in no particular order are some updates:

-He continues to be an empathetic being: He rode his bike out of my view and I came upon him leaning over a kid on the ground, assuming there was a collision, but no, he was just asking the boy--who had fallen--if he was okay. Of course, we're still working on learning to apologize after accidently hurting someone, but he is definitely concerned about people.

-He wants to share, including his Halloween candy. He came home from trick-or-treating and said, "Mom, this one is for you because you like these!" [Reeses Peanutbuttercup, how I love thee!] He's also okay with giving Elsie things that were recently very important to him, like his blankets and his balance bike.

-He imagines the future and he entertains the hypothetical: We were reading Make way for Ducklings and when the bicycle scared Mrs. Mallard, he said, "If I were riding that bicycle, I would be much more careful."

-He's been singing more often and augmenting his pitch, too: We've enjoyed melodies from Casper Babypants as well as several childhood classics lately.

-He's using creative problem solving: My coffee mug was recently broken by a toddler who shall not be named (who has been practicing her throwing skills) and Sam later said, "Well that's okay, we can glue it and use it as a vase." Wish I had thought of that!

-Growing self awareness for good or bad:  He wore his birthday crown to school, but immediately removed it when he walked in the door and I realized that he was feeling self-conscious. He also said, "When I stand up at school, they will all be laughing at me." And I said, "Will they all be smiling because it's your birthday?" And he said, "Ya, they'll be smiling and laughing." He certainly seemed a bit shy during the birthday ceremony, but he also looked proud and excited.

-Still a great helper: Sam asked me to take the above photo after he had helped me make dinner and I think that he was feeling proud. He's wearing an apron he made at school and he wanted Elsie to be in the picture with him. He's great at mixing sauces, blending cookie dough or bread mix with the electric mixer (with close supervision), setting his place at the table, and feeding the cat her dinner.

Lest I be too gushing about my first born, I should say that Sam is a four-year old boy through and through:

-He has his wacky moments: He created a word, "Cuckoo-hazard," which apparently is a noun, an adjective, and maybe even a proper noun all rolled into one. For example: "What did you eat at school today?" "Cuckoo hazard!" or "Mom, the cuckoo-hazards are in the trees and then they leap into the sky!" Um, okay. "How was your day, Sam?" "Cukoo-hazard." Right...

-He has his way-too-loud-and-energetic moments: even this larger house can seem very small when he's running all around it, shouting, or banging on the piano.

-He even has some sinister moments, too: imagine the above and add him "bumping" into his sister, or knocking all my folded laundry over.

-Lastly, he has his super-procrastinator moments, the kind--I am sure--which are familiar to most every parent everywhere.

Of course, actions like those have consequences and Kyle and I have been thankful to have found the 1-2-3 Magic book which has been a really fabulous way of disciplining Sam without getting too frustrated, hurt, or upset. We do, of course, try to emphasize the positive and praise or reward him whenever we can. But if he earns a time-out, he is always welcomed back with love, open arms, and no further discussion. As the book explains, it should generally be fun and enjoyable to be around your children and with Sam, I definitely feel that way...

Can't wait to see what another year brings.

Happy Birthday 4 year-old Sam!

We celebrated Sam's birthday a week early with a little party at our house. Sam was allowed to invite just a few of his friends from school and our neighborhood. It turned out to be just a relaxed and pleasant for the adults as it was fun and silly for the kids. We played, did a craft, had a snack and cake, and did a book trade. It was a fun, sunny afternoon!

The next morning, we (actually I mean, Kyle) constructed Sam's new pedal bike. He was able to hop on this and ride it without ever using training wheels (thanks to a year using the Styrder balance bike)

At Sam's Montessori classroom, they have a special ceremony for birthdays. The birthday person stands in the middle of the class and holds the earth. For each year of life, we showed a picture of Sam and told a brief story about what he was like at that age. After telling the story, he walked around "the sun" (a lit candle) while holding the globe as the class sang "The Earth goes round the sun, -sha-la-, the earth goes round the sun sha-la-, Sam turns 1." The picture, story, and song is repeated for each year of life.

It was a very sweet ceremony and I was impressed how all the children were very attentive. I think the candles and the ceremonial nature makes it a really special moment for everyone.

Sam with friend Jack

Halloween '14

I didn't get a lot of Halloween pictures this year (have I ever?), but here are a token few. Sam was a train engineer. As we recently learned from The Locomotive, a totally amazing and beautiful book, the engineer drives the train and the conductor collects tickets and manages the crew. Maybe that was obvious, but it was news to me. Anyway, I was happy with the practicality of the outfit (perhaps all costumes should be career-themed?) Sam already uses his engineer hat when building with Brio trains, but the overalls were new and novel to him. Kyle took Sam out along with our next-door neighbors.

I had what seemed like a great last-minute idea for Elsa: Parisian Artist, but the major set back was having too many props for a 16-month old. She was not stoked about wearing a hat in the house, or a necklace around her neck, nor holding both a paint palate and a paint brush.

Don't worry, though, I will definitely try this one again. Because, seriously, how great would it be to have a little Mary Cassatt for Halloween?

If you happened to notice the jar of bouillon and the bottle of agave on the step next to Elsa, you should know that these are objects that are part of her daily routine. She enjoys opening the spice drawers in the kitchen. There are two, packed with a variety of food products and these are among her favorite. She likes to walk them over to the step and collect them there. Occasionally, she pretends to take a big swig of the agave, and who can blame her?

Anyway, the Parisian Artist costume quickly dissolved and instead, Sam picked up the palate and brush and decided to "paint" things. In this picture, he is "painting Elsa's shirt black."

In hindsight, she did ditch the palate for the camera. 

So, maybe she's just more Leibovitz than Cassatt.

We walked around the neighboring houses pre-Trick-or-treating to see the decorations. It was really tricky trying to explain to a 4 year old why this particular one was supposed to be amusing. Discussing the disposal of dead bodies, cemeteries, grave stones, and how, "no bodies don't come back up out of the ground, that's why this is so funny" was surprisingly something I had not anticipated.

Though as Kyle mentioned, that's a little bit why we have Halloween in the first place, right, to honor and discuss the dead. Hmm, maybe we'll have to take a walk over to the cemetary soon...

"A witch's boot hiding in the dark"