Fall Break

Today is Thursday, and we have already had quite an eventful Fall Break. Anna Claire hasn't felt 100% due to teething, but I feel like she has had a lot of fun and that she is very excited about everything she's been able to experience.

We began with a trip to the farm on Saturday. We didn't stay as long as I would have liked, because temps were in the 80s. I do feel like we saw everything we wanted to see and had a good visit. Anna Claire was able to see and pet baby animals. We swang on the swings. We looked at and felt different types of pumpkins and gourds. What was really neat was watching the magician make animal balloons and making coins disappear. I really don't get how he did it. Anna Claire looked surprised too. I loved hearing her try to say the names of the animals we saw, or make their sounds.

Monday I took her to the Red Barn to give me time to REALLY clean her room and toys. I bleached every single solitary plastic toy she owns, Murphy's oiled all the wood surfaces, washed all linens, and caught up on all of her laundry. The big job was going through her toys and deciding what to sell and what to give away. I ended up taking a bunch to Once Upon a Child and faired pretty well.

Tuesday Anna Claire and I went to the pool at the YMCA. She loves swimming so much. I try to emulate the structure of the classes she had with Miss Nicole this summer as much as possible. I wish she did classes year round: envision a college age girl who looks just like a young Katie Holmes, full of energy and lots of fun. She was so great with the babies and knew what they liked.

After swimming, we have to get our diaper changed and go home. This never bodes well. She does NOT want to leave the pool! And she has NEVER liked getting her diaper changed in public. This has not changed.

After lunch and nap, we ventured back out to look at leaves. I highly recommend a drive down Ussery Road. I heard lots of "Oooooh Mama"'s from the back seat. After our tour of leaves we stopped off at the public library to renew her favorites and to pick a few others. I can totally trust her with paper books now, so this really has broadened our options. After the library, we headed to Lowes to get a new filter for the refrigerator, only Mommy forgot to check the model number before she left the house, so had no idea which one to get. Anna Claire loves riding in their race car shopping cart though, so that was a win. After Lowes, was Cupcake Connection. We had yummy strawberry and they gave us a free sweat potato to try. Those are the best. I am sold on Cupcake Connection! So is Anna Claire. Lots of "Mmmmmm Mama"'s.

Wednesday Anna Claire went to play with her friends at the Red Barn while I went shopping for fall and winter clothes and gear for her. I found such cute things at Once Upon and Child, and with the credit from the toys I sold, I paid next to nothing for it. I am so excited to see it all on her. I also found some dress up items which she is already really enjoying: feather boa, large mardi gras beads, pirate hat, cowboy hat, and tutu. I bought a big Rubbermaid container to put it all in. She loves going through all of it, trying it on, having me try it on, and putting it back in.

Today - Pumpkin Patch! Perfect weather. Upper 60s, just cool enough that a sweater feels good. Hardly any people there, but enough kids there so that Anna Claire was excited. They each had a pumpkin, so it was important to get her a tiny baby pumpkin that she could carry. Maybe they had cotton picking last year, but I don't remember it. This year, they do! We walked down and picked cotton. I opted not to take her on through the corn maze. I'm thinking next year. We did, however, swing on the swings, where we enjoyed looking at and talking about all the beautiful leaves and pumpkins.

After we left the patch, we stopped by the Barn to see if we could find her Monkey sweater and to get her laundry to wash for Monday. After lunch and nap, we got out again. We hit the pet store, the party store and Walmart. Anna Claire loved looking at and talking to the guinea pigs and birds. She tried to feed them some of her cereal through the glass. It was so cute. At the party store she loved looking at all of the balloons and was really excited to see the balloons that look like soccer balls and baseballs. She LOVES balls.

Groovin' and Readin'

We are raising quite a little ham, which I love. Larry has taught her to "groove" and raise the roof. If you ask Anna Claire to groove, she will bob her head side to side, usually with closed eyes and a big smile. It all started when listening to the jazz theme intro to Little Bill. She kind of started grooving on her own, now that I think of it. Daddy just assigned a name to it so now we can ask her and she will do it on cue. Either way, it's too darn cute.

Her reading vocabulary is upwards of 30 words now. She can read and say cup (up), keys, eyes, no (na na), moon (moo), diaper (dot da), ball (baa), bubble (bubba), hi, hat, green (geen), and duck. She opens her mouth and says "ahhhh" for mouth. She says "ahhh and sticks out her tongue for tongue. She moos for calf and waves for wave. These are all YBCR words. She can say many, many more words than this, but these are the ones she can read AND say.

She can also say Miss Jeannie, Miss Leah, and Miss Keisha's names at Red Barn. She also attempts to say many large words that I would not expect a baby to say, many of them correctly, and others she is getting the syllabication right.

I am not sure how common it is for babies to orient a book the correct way, get front to back, left to right, and carefully turn paper pages without tearing, but she is there.