Monday, February 22, 2010

Outside/Inside

This past week has been rather odd, temperature wise. Two weeks ago, the sky dumped snow everywhere. Then, during the beginning of this week, it became warm enough for us to let Sara Beth play around in the yard. I also got time to do some yard work that needed to be done.

Here you can see Sara Beth pointing out some spots I missed while I pruned the peach tree. Actually, every time she hears a truck, train, or airplane, she will identify the creator of the sound and then point to it. In this case, she saw a plane and wanted to let me know about it.



I started to clear out some of the grass from the front bushes; Sara Beth wanted to help. I really think she might be old enough to play "magic weed" this year! For those who are unaware of how the game works, I tell Sara Beth to start pulling all the weeds in the yard, and when she finds the "magic weed" she wins the game, and then we can play again with a new magic weed.
Later in the week, it got cold again, so we had to play inside again. Sara Beth really enjoys her music CD, and loves to listen to it over and over again. Whenever she has the opportunity, she will run into her play room and tell us she wants to listen to the "radio" or "CD". She has started to recognize some of the songs and will sometimes beat her drum or make her doll dance in time with the music. She has even started to try singing along with the song too, but she still has a ways to go with that skill.


One skill that she had really mastered is putting puzzles together. Now, granted, they are the wooden puzzles, and not a full 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, but her hand eye coordination has really improved as of late. Instead of jamming the piece within the general vicinity of its proper destination, she will delicately rotate and place the piece in its slot. She only resorts to jamming when it doesn't go in on the first couple tries, or when she is trying to put the pentagram puzzle piece where the octagon is supposed to go.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Snow!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. Apologies to all who were waiting for my post last week.
So first off: the big event of last week was the record snowfall. It felt just like a decent Colorado snowfall. The white fluffy stuff kept coming down all day on Thursday, from when I got up to when I went to bed. Sara Beth kept clamoring at the door to go outside in the "white".

Friday morning, the snow from the previous day was still around. In fact, the roads were bad enough that everyone got to work from home. Sara Beth still enjoyed the winter wonderland, even if it was starting to melt. She kept wanting to splash in the near frozen puddles and got all upset whenever we tried to stop her. Explaining that she would get cold had no effect. We could have been explaining the laws of thermodynamics to her and it would have had the same effect: nothing.

After mastering the art of climbing on top of tables, Sara Beth has learned that there are many other prepositions. She now enjoys climbing under the table, though as soon as I brought out the camera to take the picture, she began scrambling out to grab the device from me.

Yesterday was Mardi-Gras. I was installing a storm door in the front of our house and Heather took Sara Beth to Lowes to get a tool I thought I needed to complete the installation. While there, Sara Beth sweet talked a guy out of a set of Mardi-Gras beeds. I don't know if we want to encourage this; it could lead to trouple.


Typically, when Sara Beth is done with dinner, she will indicate that she is no longer hungry. Typically, she will do this by taking handfuls of food and either dropping them on the floor or smearing those handfuls onto the table. This time, however, things took an unexpected turn for the better when she grabbed a napkin and began to clean the table. She did still feel the need to make a face for the camera.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Cleaning up

My parents were down for the weekend. We had a lot of fun, and Sara Beth was on her best behaviour. Unfortunately, we were having so much fun, I forgot to take pictures. You'll just have to take my word on it.

Sara Beth likes to make messes. Big messes. Really big messes. If left to her own devices, she would not leave a single toy on the shelf. Heather and I are starting to crack down on it. She can make as big a mess as she wants to with one basket of stuff, but we will then force her to clean it up before moving on to something else.



She is also getting better at petting the cats. She will charge up the Little Bit, then gently pet her, then dash away. Little Bit doesn't know what to do with the fast moving munchkin and always gets her paw ready to swat at Sara Beth if she tries anything funny. Sara Beth doesn't even notice.


When she was an infant, Heather would sing the "Row Row Row Your Boat" song to Sara Beth while sitting in the rocking chair. One of the first things that Sara Beth learned to say was "Ro Ro" when she wanted Heather to repeat that song. Now that she is older, Sara Beth will climb up into the rocking chair on her own and throw her weight back and forth to cause the chair to start rocking, while she says "Ro Ro" to herself.


Over the weekend, Heather bought a tricycle for Sara Beth. Initially the handle bars were stickey, but my dad greased them up. Heather soupped it up adding the basket to the front of it. Sara Beth loves it. She will place assorted toys in the basket and then peddle around the house making engine noises the entire time.