Way Overdue

Sadly, the summer is winding down, and the days are getting shorter.  In early September, we had one week straight of temperatures over 80 degrees, which was really nice. But it's back to crisp mornings, some gray days, and we even had some steady rain over the weekend. It hadn't rained much in the past 6 weeks, so it was almost a welcome change. Almost.

Jadyn has gotten even more strong-willed, more verbal, and more physically active -- nearly fearless, very curious, and a little faster at times than her parents are comfortable with. She likes playing with her babies a lot, often choosing one to take with her in the car for the ride to and from school or in the stroller for a trip to the coffee shop. She talks about how they are tired, hungry, sleeping, or need a diaper change. Occasionally, she puts her diapers on the babies, a task that is less frustrating with a parent's help.

Jadyn likes to use her kid-safe scissors to cut up magazines, newspapers, and pictures she's drawn. She loves drawing with "Mommy's pencils" (= pens and markers used to grade students' work) and is trying to write names, letters, numbers. She has gotten really patient with a pen and paper, drawing small little circles she sometimes calls bubbles, sometimes calls smiley faces. Most of her drawings include several different colors; both small detail work and larger, more sweeping objects; and something she dubs a "sign" or signature. She can spell her name out loud, recognizes many letters of the alphabet in various contexts, and is learning to identify numbers, too. After a month in the new classroom at school, she is more relaxed there and is enjoying the challenges of the new teachers and playthings. And water play is still a huge hit. The two most reliable ways to occupy her for 45 minutes with only minor supervision: the Sesame Street website and running water at the kitchen sink. Obviously, both have their drawbacks, and we try not to overdo either of these.

Ironically, the first of these cute pictures are of her sleeping, which she does just enough of to gear up for the next day. Her sleeping issues at night are minor these days, and she still naps, around an hour and a half early each afternoon. (On weekends, sometimes Mom and/or Dad nap at the same time, and ONE TIME this summer she napped in the parental bed.)

Dessert on Labor Day weekend was cupcakes with blue frosting, which she chose at the store. Subsequently, we found out that blue food coloring turns her poop a neon green color. (We are grateful for the internet, so we were able to avoid a trip to the emergency room.) Jadyn liked looking at her blue tongue in a mirror.

We went to the Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair during the stretch of hot weather, and she preferred playing on the playground equipment over most of the fair activities.

We have been researching tile for a kitchen backsplash, and Jadyn has her own ideas about how things should lay out. She peeled the stickers off the back of the liners and put most of them on the pieces of field tile, along the short edges.

And lastly, we share this video, which serves as evidence that you don't need any expensive toys to entertain a toddler. Just pile some plastic grocery bags on the floor (once she is past the stage where she'd try to eat one or pull one over her head, of course).