New Lessons

A's grandma brought her a new book when she was here visiting. This book has really helped in teaching the alphabet. The first night she had the book, A taught her stuffed animals which letters she already knew and learned a new one (T) in the process. I caught her reading to her puppy, especially showing off the D:

A also had the opportunity to go swimming with Daddy yesterday, as it was his day off. He tries to take her swimming every chance he gets, and he is a very good swimming teacher. Yesterday he taught A how to lay on her tummy with her hands and legs out in the water, in the correct swimming position. He also was able to convince her to put her face in the water (only once and not for very long, but her face was still in the water!) to blow bubbles. I'm amazed that he was able to teach her as much as he did during that short time in the pool.

I'm also trying to teach A how to play the piano (no pictures of the event yet), which is very fun. She gets quite a kick out of pushing the keys and making sounds. She even figured out how to play the Jaws theme (duh-Duh, duh-Duh, duh-Duh), but I haven't been able to get her to repeat it since that first time.

What lessons have you been teaching your kids? Any suggestions for what else I should be teaching mine?

San Diego

My mom was in San Diego last week for a medical conference. A and I couldn't resist the chance to spend some time with her, so we made the 120 mile trek. We then forced her to play hookie for one of the days of the conference so that we could take her to the beach. Grandma built A a nest in the sand, which A used as a dancing stage:

I don't know how that girl can be so cute! She is growing up so fast and already thinking that she is too cool for anything but the beach.

I guess we need more people to visit us to give us an excuse to go to the beach more often!

The medical conference was wonderful. A and I spent a lot of time in the exhibition hall getting all the free stuff they offered (anything from pens and post-it pads to grapes and yogurt). We also went to a few classes with Grandma (I'm all up-to-date on the new antibiotics and what vaccines are best for pertussis, if you have any questions!). Amazingly A was an angel during the classes, especially when they offered her chocolate cake (I love medical conferences!).

We are so glad that we were able to spend time with my mom. Thanks for letting us join you in San Diego, Grandma!

This Post Brought to You by the Letter D

As promised, I have started working on letters with A. She picks them up very quickly, although in a very strange fashion: She can remember the strangest letters that we use the least better than those that we use all the time (Q and W are her two favorites at the moment).

Today's letter was D. I tried to help A remember the letter by saying, "Like 'dog'!", but now she thinks the letter is called "dog," not D. Oops! She did want to show off her new letter for the camera, so I thought I would share with you.

Speaking of the letter D, the other day A spilled some milk on the floor (and unlike her mother, she did not cry over it). She watched me wipe up the milk and now has a new fascination with wiping up any dirt or liquid, real or imaginary.

After taking this picture, I realized that A now has hard evidence to use against me if ever she wants to accuse me of treating her like Cinderella (my favorite accusation to my mother when I was growing up).

Animal Adventures

Last week we visited more with some of our favorite friends from Rochester. Katrina invited us to visit her family's "compound" not far from LA. They have wonderful orchards, a beautiful home, and a wide variety of animals. A was beside herself with delight.

As mentioned previously, Wyatt is A's best friends, so the two of them took great care of one another while going to visit the animals and see the orchards:

Once we reached the animals, however, they were quite happy to relinquish one another's hand in order to feed the horses some apples from the orchard. A was tickled to no end that one of the horses would eat what she brought for it. As the official horse trainer (Katrina's aunt) wasn't there at the time, the kids couldn't get too close to the horses, but A wished she could pet them. She settled for looking cute while the horse we were trying to photograph wandered off, despite my best efforts to reassure it that it wanted its picture taken. (No, no, really! You look fine. You don't have to do your hair. Just stay put while I take a picture with my daughter! You are very photogenic.)

We then returned to the house, where Katrina's aunt's cats made an appearance. A loves cats, but the cat that she has had the most dealings with (Grandma's cat) doesn't share the feeling, so A rarely has the chance to see a cat close up. One of these cats, however, was very gentle and forgiving, allowing A and Wyatt to pet it for quite a while. What a present for A!

It was a spectacular day at the family compound! Here we are, nearly a week later, and A continues to tell everyone she can about what a great time she had. Thank you to Katrina and the rest of her family for hosting us.

On a somewhat related note (hey, it has to do with animals, right?), last night A was once again calling Grandma on her pretend cell phone. In the middle of the conversation, she suddenly realized that her stuffed lamb had not yet said hello, so she put the lamb on the phone.

My only question: how much do lamb-to-Grandma minutes cost?

A Rochester Day at the Beach

Some of our very good friends from Rochester, Katrina and Wyatt and Lucien (we missed Ross), came to visit, so we met them at the beach. Wyatt is a few months older than A and is her best friend in the whole world. She was very excited to see them.

Wyatt, being older, taught A in the ways of the beach, specifically in how to dig in the sand.

A is a great student and soon learned the joy of putting the sand in a bucket, then dumping that bucket out, mostly all over herself. We ended up with something like this:

Sand everywhere! The kids had so much fun at the beach, then at lunch afterward.

We are so glad that "Trina," "Wyatt," (yes, A can actually say Wyatt's name correctly), and "Shoo-shoo" could come visit us. We hope we get to see them a lot while we're living here.

Em and Eric's Amazing Vacation

Em and Eric came out to visit us last week. I thought I'd share some of the highlights of our vacation (I hope they were also highlights for them).

Eric confessed to me the first night they were here that he had never been to the beach before. He has led such a sheltered life. Our first priority, therefore, was to broaden his horizons by taking him to the Santa Monica Pier, which has a carnival and - more importantly - the beach.

We walked around the pier for a while, and decided that the carousel was the ride for us. Well, maybe not all of us (I'm not permitted on rides because I'm just too pregnant and Eric's back doesn't take to carnival rides and Em was looking for a souvenir for work), maybe just the two most adventurous in the group.

Then it was time for the beach. You already know our feelings about the beach (see earlier posts about how great A thinks the beach is), so we hoped to spread such joy to Eric.

A led the way to the water, with R, Em, and Eric right behind her. Here's Eric's first ever wave from the ocean:

Very exciting! Well, even A knew that wasn't exciting enough for Eric, so she insisted on going deeper into the ocean. Eric followed, daring Em to come along. Em can't resist a dare, so she went out even deeper. Then Eric noticed something that Em did not. To capture the full impact of what happened next, please note that neither Eric nor Em are wearing swimsuits.

Yes, a large wave came (I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get the full impact), unseen by Em, who was soaked up to her shoulders. Eric did see the wave and ran away, enough that he was only soaked up to his waist. A, of course, loved every bit of the large wave, which completely covered her in R's arms.


Eric's first day at the beach (doesn't that sound like a children's book?) was a great success. They were all soaked, I got to rest in the sand without having to worry about watching any kids, and we all came away with a nice sunburn (except A, who just tanned nicely).


I don't know what the highlight of the trip for Em and Eric was, but A's highlight was story time with Uncle Eric.

She now insists that I read the book to her just like Eric did, and if I don't read it right, we have to go back and start over again. Thanks, Uncle Eric!

We are so glad that Em and Eric could take a couple of days to stay with us. We loved having them with us. When are you going to visit us?

Count Me In

A has continued to grow up (why won't she stop it?) by learning yet another astounding trick. She started by simply doing the fingers:

one

two

three

four

five

But then she really surprised Mommy by knowing what the words and the fingers actually mean. So now we are required to count everything: how many bears are in her book, how many toes she has before we put on her shoes, how many stairs we climb on the way to the playground, how many pieces of strawberry she eats at lunch.

I guess I need to give each of the "school subjects" fair exposure; letters will need to be next. Maybe she can count how many letters there are in the alphabet?