21 months

21 months is the next three month stop on our way towards the terrific twos...oh my! It has been a wonderful adventure between the ones & the twos. And, when I look back at her one year old pictures, it reinforces just how much growing up she really did this year.Toddlerhood has been such a sweet spot with our dear Eliza Kate. I really would love to linger at 21 months just a few months longer. Pause. please. pretty girl. When the door is slowly closing on the chapter of babyhood, I miss those early days with you...chubby cheeks, chubby legs and baby coos. I'm LOVING soaking in each stage with our girl every little stop along the way.

One bonus of blogging is that it holds me accountable to jot down little snapshots of development with my children. I know it will bring me great pleasure in the years to come to reflect on each little tidbit of info.

Her 21 month old picture:

Showing Independence:

Eliza Kate likes to stand on her stepstool and repeat "wash ya hands". She steps up and rubs her hands together trying to perfect her lather. She's much too quick without my assistance to rinse off all the soap. A new cute habit is to stand by the bathroom sink and say " too-brush peez" "peez mom, too-brush". Miss Independence is taking initiative to perform these independent tasks on her own. Such a girl thing to be so personally responsible for grooming herself. She's been putting her own shoes on and taking them off for a few months now. She likes to put them in their place when entering the house. Somewhere around month 19, we removed the baby gate on the stairs and she's become a stair master. The best part of her up and down routine on the stairs is that she reminds everyone around her to be "careful" and "watch out" while she carefully chooses each step.

Playing:

Eliza Kate is completely enthralled with her babydoll. Bitty baby has captured her full attention. After wiping Eliza Kate's nose last week, she requested "hold it" to the wipe. I gave her a new wipe and went along my way folding laundry. I watched her sweetly give Bitty baby a nose wipe mimicing my own mommying skills. She really is watching how I take care of her and all my little mommy chores. She is quite the doting mommy to Bitty. I love to watch EK put her baby to sleep soundly in her crib. She even plays games with Bitty by tickling her toes with a "tickle tickle" game. Eliza Kate turns her babydoll upside down and swings baby back and forth saying "tick tock, tick tock". This is a cute game that daddy plays with her. She loves it so much, she mimics it with her doll. Her teddy bear is now wearing a diaper. She requested a "diiii-pear" for him to wear. Her beloved pink lovey even gets a daily bottle

Her Routine:

At the end of 20 months, she gave up her morning nap. My kiddos have loved snoozing well into their toddlerhood. She started waking up around 3:00am ready to play, so I took her cues and chalked it all up to not needing the morning snooze session anymore. We have loved having our mornings to play away, but I secretly wish I had the hour back to get some things done around here. We settled into our new schedule with a 30 minute earlier afternoon nap around 1:15. In those early days on no morning nap, it took everything in her to stretch her awake time until after lunch. She wakes up about 8:00 a.m. after I drive my morning carpool run. It's off to sleep around 1:15- 4:00. Bedtime greets this tired one at 8:00 p.m.

At the table:

Eliza Kate prefers to sit at the table with Miller, but we haven't made the jump out of the high chair yet. She would eat only fruits & guzzle milk all day if I didn't push meats and proteins. Her favorites at meal time are Kiwi, grapes, apples, mandarin oranges, cucumbers, carrots, cheese, black beans, yogurt, toast, goldfish crackers, pancakes and scrambled eggs. I really push for peanut butter, chicken, meats and pasta in her diet. I love watching her locate a napkin from our table drawer and give her lips the wipedown pat after meals. She really is concerned with staying neat. Too bad we can't get her to wear a bib. She insists on using utensils at every meal even if the food is finger food. Oh, her little ways! I have to really watch abandoned cups leftover on the table. She'll climb right up on the kitchen chairs and help herself to our food and drink. I know she's so ready to sit with us.

What she's saying:

Around 19 months, her phrases really took of and sometimes, they count as sentences...Here's a sampling:

Clap ye hands

Brush ye teeth

Comb ye hair

Hey Mom ( anytime she wants my attention)

Mear Titty Tat - Come hear kitty cat

Titty Tat hiding

Elmo's On?

Watch Carebears?

Jammies on -as she points to her footed sleeper

Ont cheese mommy

Oh know, Baby fall down

Go see Grandmama

Bye Mawny, Bye Ger-ant- as she waves from carpool

Hold it

All done

Want lunch-lunch is every meal

I speel- I spill

Give a big kiss- while she's kissing lovey

Treat ose mean peez- Ice cream, please

Hey mommy, der are you?

Sit down

OK-she answers every question she asks with her desired answer of "ok"

"Monkey, der are you"-as we flip the pages to her favorite book

What she's singing:

Eliza Kate loves the Birthday chorus inserting "Wiza Cake" in the name blank. She even sang Happy Birthday to her cracker at snacktime today. She is loving Wheels on the Bus and the baby stanza with the "wa waaaa waaaaa" is her most requested line. She loves hearing me sing This Little Light of Mine and tries to hold her finger up. Grandmama taught her Jesus Loves Me...she chimes in with the Yes, Jesus Loves Me part of the song as she sways back and forth. She loves to sing "Ring around the Rosy" and then fall down with me.

Other fun facts:
Eliza Kate knows the difference between hot and cold and will comment on the different temperatures. She counts to five and knows the color pink:) She surely wears enough of this girly color to identify it. She mastered singing her ABC's a while back and can identify her "A".....I had to marvel at this stage Miller could pick out and identify each letter of the alphabet...Each child truly masters different skills on their own timetable. Eliza Kate is my cuddle bug at night. She nuzzles close and sucks her thumb. I love those tender moments holding my freshly bathed girly just before bed. There's really nothing like that cozy feeling with a willing cuddly cutie pie.
Favorites:
Favorite Activity: sliding, running, strolling baby
Favorite Book: Busytown Books
Favorite Song: Happy Birthday
Favorite Show: Sesame Street
Favorite Character: Elmo

house hopping

It's really special to Miller to have the luxury of a built in playmate across the street. And, when I refer to across the street.... I mean thirty yards from our front door. Gotta love starter neighborhoods for close proximity. It use to make me sad that Miller didn't have a brother to wrestle around with, but when you can have neighbor friends it eases his lonliness and need for guy time,:)

Not to mention, there is no planning playdates for these two.

They organize it themselves. Little did we know that when these little guys were babies that they would hit it off. Having Grant as a classmate this year has been really over the top. When it's pretty outside you can find this duo riding bikes and playing on Grant's backyard playscape. And, because they don't get enough interaction in class, these two usually house hop back and forth several times on weekdays between our houses. Matchbox cars & criss cross crash use to entertain them, but as they are they are growing their interests are changing. Inside games like Memory matching , Leapad apps, and Mario Kart entertain them now.

On a side note....

Can you handle the adorable-ness of spirit wear Fridays? Go Eagles

We're soaking in this blessed season of neighborhood house hopping because we realize more and more that our time is limited in this neighborhood. One thing is for sure, we realize day by day why it wasn't just the right time to move for us a few years back. We would have sorely missed out on the blessing of these rich friendships for Miller & one fantastic PreK experience. And, those rich experiences are something we may not have been able to give him in another neighborhood. Sometimes unanswered prayers are the ones we're thankful for the most.

lots of celebrating

We "hauled" our crew over to Birmingham to celebrate Will and Logan's third birthday this weekend. Miller and Eliza Kate really "dug" their party. I love that the Morrow fam lives within reach so that we can celebrate these joyous events together. The construction party theme was just soo much cuteness.

The party table all set up for the workers at the site.

Of course, our party princess knows that a party means fun food. Have we mentioned this girl can put it away? She loves a good chip and dip tray...in this case chips and salsa. Yes, she is a sloppy dipper. On tippy toes, she'll get to those appetizers one way or another.

I had to rescue her roaming hand from the Reese's pieces jar more than once before lunch. She kept asking for the "M em M's." Eliza Kate should have heeded the Caution Tape warning to take a few steps back.

Miller was busy..He had a few construction jobs to do. Like, hammering golf tees into styrofoam:)

Notice his hard hat for protection. You never know when a stray plastic hammer is going to pound your head at the site.

There was no shortage of fun things for EK to get into to. She loves to color these days and made herself right at home adding her personal touch to some truck pages.

We "clocked out" for a lunch break. Eliza Kate insists on using her untensils even if the meal consists of finger foods. It's amazing to watch her little preferences revealed daily as she grows. She has her own little particular ways!

When she's distracted, Miller can slip in for a brother, sister pose. She didn't even complain. Love it!

Will was living it up as his party. His daddy was stacking the blocks high so he could knock em down.

Cupcake time!

This one made herself at home in the rocks. She was quite cozy over there by herself for a bit shoveling rocks in and out of the loaders. She knows a thing or two about how to play with construction trucks and all about getting dirty.

A fun reunion with sorority friends in Birmingham. It's special that our kiddos get to play together at these parties. One thing's for sure, there are lots of them running all around.Meet "Terrica" in the middle...the blending of my roomates name with mine. That's what some friends called us in our college days because the "a" ending gave everyone a mix up with our names. Every good pair of friends should have a blended name. We just belong together;) 

I took some time hugging sweet Logan opening one of our gifts. We had a blast at the construction site celebrating the big three with you Logan and Will! We loved sharing in it all with you. One things for sure, your sweet momma was a hard working mom getting all the details ready for you.

We capped off the weekend at Dunkin Donuts after a family dinner  celebrating the big 3-3 for momma. I just love celebrating with our family. I mean, to hear these two kiddos sing the birthday chorus to me is over the top darling. We  still refer to it as "Dancing Donuts" in our home. Miller use to switch the Dunkin for dancing and it has stuck. It's just one of those words we don't want to correct him on because it's too cute.  What says 33 better than a chocolate covered donut party with your family?

Chocolate frosting was everywhere...but that's part of the fun!

 The joy on Eliza Kate's face explains it all. We love to party , party! After hopping from celebration to celebration, it was hard to come back down from our wild sugar high. But, all good things have to end!

Thankful for all the reasons to celebrate in our life.

first read

Tucked away in storage from last spring's neighborhood consignment sale were these fun Bob Books from Scholastic. I managed to dig through a few bins and locate complete Sets 1 & 2 with 12 books in each series. I'm so glad I snagged these treasures as Miller is ready to enjoy them now. Inside the books came  vowel pattern sticky notes from a former  kindergarten teacher's reading group...score! Long winter afternoons led me to start hunting around for new resources to use with our budding reader. We started with short vowel patterns, beginning sounds and three letter words. The short "a" sound is a great place to start.

Meet Sam, Mat, and Cat.... the first characters to get lifted off the page into Miller's reading vocabulary. These main figures get introduced again in Book 2. It is such a confidence builder as an emerging reader for Miller to read books on his own level with words he can decode on his own. The short sentences and phrases in the book repeat and build with each new page. Love this!

 I hear there are Bob apps out there too for beginning readers. I'm going to have to check those out. I really like taking the traditional hard copy route to start out with. I'm the traditionalist that likes the "hold it in your hands"  reading experience. I want Miller to know how to maneuver the book correctly, turn real pages and follow the left to right reading pattern. Once he is well on our way to becoming a fluent reader, I might integrate the app.The sky's the limit, Miller man!

So without further adieu....

Forgive the video quality...couldn't find the HD setting in time to capture Miller's eagerness to read the book!

Sure, he has one miscue (Mat for Sam) & a repetition, but with practice he'll build his fluency. His self correction by re-reading cracks me up. And, going back into the book to search for that last page reading "the end" made me silently laugh! I am loving this new literacy adventure with my reader. A whole new world is out there for him & it's exciting!

old friend

Classic books that are dear to our family are what I call "old friends". You don't just want to pick it up once and read it never visiting it again. We talk about how when you visit with your old friend each night, you learn new things you never knew on first reading. So, this is my very old friend copyright circa 1963. I inherited it as a child, but not in the 60's thank you very much....more like the 80's.. I can remember family gatherings around The Best Word Book Ever, identifying household objects on its pages and having conversations about daily life from its pictures. Richard Scarry even hid a silly snail on each page. It's fun to hunt for this little guy in each scene. A Where's Waldo of sorts. Miller loves the hidden object game.

When Grandmama  watched Miller every morning during his first year of life, they enjoyed our classic family friend together too. I know this contributed to his little expanded vocabulary. He liked the transportation page of course. And, now he's teaching Eliza Kate new things from its pages.Her favorite scene is looking inside the Busytown house. The kitchen section really holds her attention too. Miller was teaching her all about the spatula and how he uses it making cookies the other day. She's taking notes on how to become a wonderful homemaker.

There's something about this book that symbolizes my own childhood. And, watching my own children enjoy it warms over my sentimental heart. Miller noticed how I recorded my own name on one of the pages. Sure, it has tears and re taped pages, but we like it that way. It has been loved on and enjoyed for years.

And, since we have the original our kids are learning about traditional gender roles in a 1960's home. It's actually a little slice of a simpler time in life. Refreshingly, Leave it to Beaver. The Busytown mom is shown joyfully working in her kitchen perfecting the art of homemaking and making her home pleasant for her husband. Her house is spotless. How does she do it?  She even does her laundry and irons inside the kitchen. A lot of the kitchen utensils are manual without the use of electricity. Her Busytown children have pulled up a seat beside the counter to make afternoon cookies with their mom. She's also shown strolling her baby in the neighborhood in the most beautiful of prams. Dad is shown dressed in business attire. Our "male" mail carrier walks house to house....sigh. The book depicts a milkman which was a completely foreign concept to Miller. It's brought up a lot of fun flashback conversations. No one is texting, surfing the internet, eating on TV tables in the den, facebooking or shopping online..that's for sure.

Well, Busytown has been busy changing in more recent years. In the updated 1991 edition,  the mom & the dad are busy in the kitchen sharing responsibilities. Where is her gas range, stainless fridge, pantry & granite island?

 We have the classic version on the left. In the 1991 version on the right, dad is leisurely strolling with the pram in the neighborhood. Notice the updated range in the kitchen. The kitchen nearly doubled in size. A lady farmer replaces the scarecrow in the fields. It even shows her driving a tractor with a large bow on her head in another picture. The police "officer" is a woman.  Firefighter replaced the term of fire"man". Letter Carrier instead of mail"man". I had to crack up when the "pretty stewardess" had a  name change to flight attendant. At least they kept the Busytown child riding on a classic radio flyer trike. I'm in love with red classic bikes;) The bobbing balloon tied on the back has to symbolize a ride to the shoe store for saddle oxfords. Or, did they take a trip to the soda fountain for a Coke float? At least that's how it plays out in my imagination. The gender roles in this book have changed drastically, wouldn't you say?

The change that is the most annoying in my humble opinion is this excerpt. Since when did prompt obedience become old fashioned and out of date?  What is so wrong with promptness anyway?  It's amazing that they didn't include that Busytown bear refused to stop playing his video game so mom let him decide when he wanted to come to the table. He texted her demanding dessert..ha! We will not own an updated version of this Busytown book.
The "old school" in me thinks it's ok to rush to the table when called.

For now, we'll bask in our more classic edition with traditional roles. They won't know any different.

 

There is nothing wrong with dreaming about being a wonderful domestic queen.

trucking along

Miller's "trucking along" on his journey towards becoming an early reader. This past summer, we started memorizing the Dolche PreK sight word list. He mastered a stack of printed index cards mostly based on sight, which I thought was pretty good for a four year old. As long as we reviewed them nightly, his photographic memory managed to store away each word. I really wanted him to start applying phonics skills for word attack skills though. So, slowly he has been blending phonics patterns and is a beginning reader. I just love to watch him touch each letter and make its sound. It's amazing to watch the wheels turn inside his little brain as he connects the letter to its sound. It helps to have Miss C's support at school as she is pulling Miller and two other beginning readers for a small group session each day.

Being the child of a teacher, M gets a double dip of reading in the afternoon. We are in the Pre-Kindergarten groove of things around here. Although, I really feel like his days resemble a day in grade school.  Our routine keeps me accountable to working with Miller. Every afternoon Grant and Miller run around our yards while we wait 30 minutes for the big kids to get off the bus on our street. Then, all the elementary kids rush home to do "homework". Well, since M doesn't get assigned homework yet, I use it as an excuse to give him a structured mini lesson. It keeps him accountable to know that all his buddies are doing work inside. We either do word work with foam letters or tiles, or practice handwriting from our Handwriting Without Tears workbook.

He loves digging around in my school bag to find different treasures. I'm tutoring a group of first graders this year, and knew that Miller would benefit from using these sight word activities. Today we worked on the digraph "th". Love seeing this just "roll" off his tongue. Manipulating the letters with a hands on approach has been a really successful approach. He has some letter reversals, but I'm  so proud of him for reading these words all by his four year old self.

After each spelled & sounded out word is read, Miller oh-so-cutely drives the truck off the table complete with sound effects. He's really into the truck driving thing. If he didn't want to be a daddy so badly for his occupation, I know he would choose to drive a truck as a close second. When we tell him that he can be both if he wants to, it just doesn't connect.

All grown up...and reading!

More reversals...

Today, we moved on to fun letter tiles for word families. Miller had fun with the _ am family.

He came up with a "ram"...with horns he added. And, because he is a silly goose at times and loves to come up with nonsense words for attention & laughs......Miller came with several nonexistent words. Hey, as long as he can sound them out, I'm fine with a few randoms.

He called this his superhero word.  Batman, maybe? Add an "h" and it's the wham band.

Such a joy to watch the words come together for Miller man. We are enjoying our afternoons together. I hope he still enjoys working with me next year.

elmo obsession

If Elmo had a fan club, Eliza Kate would join it . She's loved this furry little friend for months. But, once I discovered a new smart phone activity for her, she's taken her interest in Elmo to a whole new level. I let her use my phone as a last resort during the Christmas season to keep my shopping side kick entertained. Well, that introduction made her want mommy's phone at home. She's obsessed with Elmo videos. Who can say no to her cute request?  "watch elmo-peeze"! "peeze mom"!

It really is more entertaining for me to watch her use her pointer finger on the touch screen selecting which song she wants to hear. EK squeals & sways with delight even singing along to "elmo's moves"

Oh, and she flips. She's knows all the tricks to operating my Droid. Notice her thumbs resting on the side so she doesn't interrupt the song....so technologically savvy that girl. Kid's these days.

Big brother joins in for the over the shoulder peek. He gets into Elmo a little. As long as he doesn't get too close, she's ok sharing her passion. We do encourage her to share. When Miller gets a turn, he requests The Wiggles or snow plow trains with EK impatiently waiting her turn in line.

Nothing distracts her from her little date with her fuzzy haired friend. Not even Miller's crazy faced shenanigans.

And, I hear that the new strollers have a snap in option on cup holders to hold these devices. What will they think of next?