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.

This is going to get interesting...

Yesterday Larry and I took Anna Claire to the public library. She immediately dove toward the board books and began handing me some to read. I opened a book and began reading the story outloud to her: "I see with my _____" (I began to leave out words I knew she could read, just like I do at home.) Only I forgot I wasn't at home. There was a lady behind me looking at me like, "Lady you are crazy. She's a baby!" Of course it would have been perfect timing for Anna Claire to chime in with the word "eyes", but nothing from her. So I am just sitting there looking like a weirdo. People just don't see babies the way we do. This is going to get interesting.

My Baby Can Read

I'm afraid I am not as diligent as I'd hoped at keeping track of Anna Claire's first words. After the affirmation of the first four or five, she gained great confidence and is now in just one week's time, talking up a storm, attempting most words I ask her to say. Today, new words were "bib", "blue", "uh oh" and I'm sure there were more. Oh yeah, "fish".

She can READ and say: hat, eyes, green, moon, no, banana, diaper, book, keys. These are all YBCR words, with the exception of "banana" and I believe that is due to exposure to it in two of her favorite books.

If you show her lion or bee or car, she will make the sound for those, and if you show her clap she will clap her hands.

I am no longer skeptical about this program. As she learns to say words, she is confirming for us that she can also read them. I am confident now that she knows all the words, and that it is just a matter of time before she provides us with that proof!

Talking up a STORM!

It's so much fun watching Anna Claire learn how to talk. She is now saying and reading several words plainly: ball, hat, eyes.

And she's attempting to say many others, but isn't quite pronouncing the entire word: nana (banana), nunya (onion), bk (book).

For some words, she makes sounds that represent the word: brrrmmm (car), grrr (lion or tiger), bzzzz (bee). This is true when she sees the word, the object, or a picture of it.

My baby can read, which is just so freakin cool. I can't tell you how proud we are to see all of her work and our work pay off. So fun!

A cute video for your enjoyment.

Walkin' or Talkin' - Which Will Come First?

Larry and I think TALKING! She is attempting difficult words like butterfly which sounds so cute coming from her, "Buddabye." She can clearly say "map" and "ball" and "bear" and knows she is saying these words (Dora's Map is on TV when she says "map", she is holding her ball or bear when she says those words). I love it! It is so exciting and is absolutely the highlight of my day to watch her progress.

Your Baby Can Read officially rocks. I have been skeptical myself throughout the process, but we committed to it and have been true to it since Anna Claire was 4 months. She KNOWS these words. I can give her two, three or four words cards, say a word, and she will select the correct card. When watching the videso, she now does the action for the word before the announcer says them. I am trying to get this on video to share with you, but everytime I think to video it seems she would rather cruise and be on the go. Getting an aspiring walker to sit still and look at notecards is a challenge!

I just keep thinking, what an advantage this skill will be to her, and what confidence she will have to have already mastered phonics and letter recognition at such a young age. I can show her any two letters, name one, and she will choose the correct one. Amazing. This is true for colors, shapes, fruits and vegetables as well.



Here is a recent video of her. What's she eating? A clover.

It just keeps getting better...

It has been a difficult transition for Anna Claire - going from staying home with Mommy and Daddy full-time to the Red Barn. For the first two weeks, my child was doing good to get 11 1/2 hours of sleep, including naps. She was hardly eating - at daycare or at home. Larry and I were so worried about her. On top of that she caught the cold virus that was going around and began to cut two molars. It's also hard passing off your baby and to leave her kicking and screaming. Harder still is hearing anecdotes and about milestones, and wishing you were there for them.

Here's where it gets better: after two weeks, I am VERY pleased to say that I have one happy baby. In fact, I have never seen her happier. She is eating most/all of her snacks and meals, and sometimes wants seconds. She is sleeping an additional half hour each night. She is so tired from her day, she is easily bedding down 30 minutes earlier. She is napping an hour or more - an improvement from the 30-40 minutes she was clocking in on week one.

When Anna Claire wakes up in the morning, she is all smiles...lots of "talking". I am so glad she is a morning person.

When I drop her off, she is a big girl. She goes to Miss Keisha or Miss Johnna without crying. I worried about leaving her so early because her main teachers are not at the Barn yet, but she likes Keisha and Johnna a lot. I like them too.

When I pick her up, she is usually finishing up snack. All of the teachers are so eager to run up to me and tell me about her day and how good she was. I can tell they really like her, and that makes me happy and reassured.

When we get home, Anna Claire is just fun. She wants to cruise, talk, give me hugs, and have me read her books. She is such a little book worm, it's great.

The periodic fussiness that Larry and I saw over the summer has dissipated. We just have this wonderful child who seems to enjoy life. And we enjoy her!