Archives for March 2007

We finally did it!

Allison got her first haircut ever yesterday at the Brat Pack. After numerous inquiries from family and friends, e.g. “so…are you planning to cut her hair?” or “she needs a haircut”, I took Allison in for a little trim. Our hairdresser took about half an inch off all around, telling us it would make a big difference to get rid of the baby hair (sigh).

Katherine was inspired enough to get her hair cut as well. It took 9 months but we finally grew out her bangs. Now her hair is much easier to comb and manage…and she’s looking pretty stylish too!

All in all, the kids loved the fruit leather, the DVD player and the free lollipops afterwards (no, Allison didn’t eat hers).

Check out the Headgear

Allison has a very quirky sense of humor. Yesterday Katherine and her friend played dress up with full-on ballet gear, wings, etc. Allison decided to participate by donning pink Gymboree panties on her head and a pair of droopy pink fairy wings. She was so proud, strutting around the house in her white Stride Rite sandals.

Also to the right you can see what she did with my old business school canvas bag…

2006 Carnival

Every year for the last four years we’ve attended the Redmond Toddler Group Carnival which is held near our house. Allison goes to Ms. Ginny’s class every week, which means that we had to staff the racetrack booth this year. Steve, a total trooper, took the two hour early morning shift – helping to setup and waving flags at kids to send them down the race track in cozy coupe cars. Allison loved the race track; Katherine loved it even more despite barely fitting in the coupes.

Since Steve worked the race cars, I took the kids around the booths and activities. We hit just about every one, from fish pond to soccer to basketball and….the cake walk!! It only took three tries this year, walking around to music, but we won a gigantic blue fish cake. Katherine tore across the gymnasium to “tell Dad.” We tried the cake later that night and promptly went into sugar comas. 🙂 Steve was psyched to learn that Katherine can actually shoot and make baskets (we found out that they play basketball at school during PE). He’s already thinking about a basketball hoop and soccer net on the driveway for….Katherine.

Outfitting Pinky Bear

Since the last posting, we’ve now added yet another pink bear to the family….Pinky Sarah Bush (e.g. Allison’s Pinky Bear not to be confused with Pinky Irene Bush). It became very clear that Allison really liked Katherine’s bear and that Katherine wasn’t excited about sharing her new bear with Allison, “That’s MY bear!!” To alleviate this issue, we went to the mall last weekend and applied Allison’s gift card to another pink bear. I held Allison up, showing her the different stuffed animals and asking which she wanted. She confirmed her desire for a pink bear, we waited for about 15 minutes in line for stuffing. Allison did surprise me by reaching for her own red heart from the bin to insert in the bear. Before handing it to the sales person for insertion, she held it between her palms (without any prompting) – just like the bigger kids. Then, she watched as the sales person closed up the bear, we paid for it, and Katherine lugged the large box thru the mall for her.

We told Katherine that she could choose one SMALL item from the store for her bear. She vacillated between a sparkly sweatsuit, a pair of Sketcher sneakers, a pink backpack and then a bear fake pink fabric makeup kit – eventually settling on the last item. For two days, she was in makeup heaven, applying pretend rainbows (like face painting) and such to anyone who would sit down for her. Katherine calls it playing “perfume.” Then on Day 3….tears….more tears and buyers remorse….”I really wanted the backpack, and it’s going to be ALL GONE by the time I get there next time….NO…I should have gotten Pinky a STROLLER…” This went on for at least half an hour before we figured out that we could put this to good use.

What’s the deal we struck? If Katherine could sleep in her bed, with no screaming at night, no waking us up for bathroom trips or for any other reason for FIVE straight nights, she would get ONE small item from Build-a-Bear. She wasn’t wild about this, telling us that we had to get in the car and go now to the store, but we held firm. Steve’s rationale – that five nights of uninterrupted sleep was well worth a $10 stroller at the store. Katherine’s made it through four nights, and with one more night under her belt is heading back to the store for her well-earned reward. I hope this sleeping thing sticks because we’re feeling a lot more rested than we have in a long time.

More Development Milestones

Allison continues to express herself with more and more words, saying sentences like “I read Dora book,” “May I have some?” or just “I want it!!” She becomes very obsessed with certain activities, things or events that she sees:

• Her tie-dyed shirts – well worn and now far too small for wearing in public
• The next door neighbor’s new washer machine – “washing machine, truck go bye bye, water go down drain!!”
• Marble run…arriva!…go Go GO!!”

She’s learning her lower case alphabet thanks to an enormous wooden alphabet puzzle with both lower and upper case letters. It takes her a couple sittings to finish this puzzle, and she gets a bit confused with lower case b, d, p and q – since the pieces all look alike – but we’re making progress.

Allison’s spatial skills now extend to the wooden train puzzle (with small red pegs) that she can do easily. She can do the Lauri rubber train puzzle, but struggles with pushing the rubber pieces into place. Next step is to find our old small floor puzzles for her. I also bought a pretty cool product a couple weeks ago, called Wedgits. They’re like plastic squares that come in different colors and sizes. They can be assembled into different configurations, without requiring much finger strength, and the product really scales up for older child use too. Both kids like to play with them, in different ways though. Allison puts pieces on top of one another, takes them out, puts other pieces on top, takes them out – a very iterative process. Katherine strives to make patterns with her squares or to make objects. That all said, it’s a very cool toy.