Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Girlies

Yesterday we separated the girls' rooms again. When we joined them up a few months ago, all was well. Grace was little and just fine lying flat on her back sleeping away, and Violet didn't care a hoot that she was in there. They both slept like logs.

Now, Grace is a chubby little bundle of "dookadooka" trouble. She stands on her little fat feet in her crib and GIGGLES and CHORTLES endlessly while Violet tries to resist her charming invitations to play. When Violet does not respond, Grace cries and wails and complains. It got to be 9-10 at night before they'd settle down. And Violet was just getting too many spankings. NOT good. I didn't like the whole "Oldest is Responsible" thing that was going on in there.

So we split their rooms up again. Now, the desk sits in the hallway and, it turns out, we like it much better there. It stays cleaner, since we're always looking at it. ;)

Grace these days.....wow, is she changing. She's just over 1 year old, now. 14 months. She is not nearly as ready to "play the learning game" as Violet was. Violet was a total sponge. She figured everything out. She figured out obedience, words, games, and anything you wanted to teach her. Grace is much more complicated. Words or signs she's known for months she'll just *not* say because she's embarrassed. Yes, embarrassed at age 1. WOW.

Her list of abilities:
1. catches and throws a ball with EASE and great excitement
2. crawls and does floor gymnastics, but will not walk, yet.
3. is passionately attached to her Bet-DEE (blankie) and made up her own sign for it: a big, luscious, giant sniff of her hand while saying tenderly, "Bet-DEEeee!"
4. loves to be tickled. "Dika-dika-dika" is her invitation to tickle her.
5. Loves to "ride" her trike (she sits on it while we hold her on and wheel her around.) and pleads for it anytime anyone heads to the garage. "Wheeeee" she calls it.
6. Can remove her own diaper.....*ahem*
7. Is very smart about not wanting to obey when out of sight. She is very, very tenderhearted, and will wail if I merely softly speak the word, "No", but then has no qualms about going right back to the toilet after I leave the room. (Yes, the toilet is a favorite of hers....unlike SO unlike Violet, who never even looked at the toilet.)
8. Has a very complex emotional attachment to dogs (and other animals, too, but mostly dogs). She adores them, but is very, very frightened of them. When she sees a dog, she will simultaneously coo and cry. Smiling, and pointing and jumping up and down while moaning and laughing alternately. If one gets too close she'll bawl. It's hilarious!
9. Is also very frightened of a long-bearded man at our church....just cries and cries.
10. Adores her sister, "BAAA-Deee"
11. Takes 2 naps a day, now. Morning from 9:30 to 11;30, and afternoon from 2-4. Afternoon one is pretty flexible. If we're out and about, she doesn't sleep in the car anymore. We just have to be home by 3 so she can nap or we're doomed!

Words include: Dog, woof, Cow, Moo, Bet-deee (blankie), pfff-tee (pretty), Lookada (look at that), Light ("haaat" and then sticks her tongue out---since I was trying to teach her the "L" sound), Hot, Book, poo-kee (poopy), whee, baby.

Violet these days: Such a grown-up girl. I'm amazed she's still just 4. She seems more like an 8 year old. She lives her life in musical-theater. She tells her story (that she made up) in song...with an accent. :) She has a beautiful singing voice, and knows how to make up verses and chorus, and sing refrains, etc. She's quite good. Thank you, Disney. ;)

She learned to ride a bike with no training wheels this summer. It was pretty quick, too. Just took about 3 tries and she was off! She has a phenomenal amount of chores for her age, and we recently started giving her a dollar a day when she finished everything. We figured the best way to teach her about money was to start letting her earn it and spend it. Most days she wants to spend it right away, and we walk up to the corner pharmacy/gift shop and she learns about how much she can get, how much she has to save, etc.

She's learning Suzuki piano...pretty quickly, now. She's on her 6th song, now, plus the Twinkle variations. She has a very strong ear, but also a very LAZY way about her. I don't quite know what it is about the piano that brings out the laziness in smart kids. I've seen it a dozen times. The smart ones are the ones who sit there and ROLL their eyes at you. HA! I did the same thing. :) But she understands what she must overcome. And she really enjoys playing, too. She likes to experiment with 2 hands, though she's only learning right hand at present, and work out beautiful harmonies with her Honeybee or Lightly Row. I love listening to it.

She is reading 4-5 letter words, now. We're going through the "How To Tutor" book, and over the summer I am pretty casual with it. On slower mornings we sit down and read sentences together. Other mornings, we just play outside or go somewhere shopping. We started going to the pool again, and Violet is rediscovering the water. She's forgotten how to swim, unfortunately. But she'll pick it up again, I hope. I just wish I had the ability to hang onto 2 of them. Grace needs me to hold her pretty firmly. She lost her fear of the water the first visit, and is totally fine pushing me away in the water, and sinking like a stone. HA! I need to get some floaters on both of them.

Ben & I are in the paperwork zone still, with the home-building. Check out our Adair blog for details. :)




3 comments:

  1. Yeeeah... we had to do the same thing with the boys. Jude sleeps in J's office for now.

    Loved the update! Can't believe Jamie walked before Grace! That's pretty wild.

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  2. It was so entertaining reading that "report," as your grandma would call it. I got my start in musical comedy with Disney, too. I think Violet is just like you at that age, singing all the time and having a love/hate relationship with the piano. (You actually didn't start piano until you were five, though.) Wish I could hug both of those dear girls right now.

    Sounds like everything is in order, and you are doing a great job of mothering!

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  3. I admire how intelligent Violet is, and I always struggle with feeling like I don't do enough "sit down" leaning time with Elyana yet. Her greatest pleasure is in singing her heart out and hours of puppet shows (from us) and her own creation of her puppet shows when she's playing by herself. She makes up stories and plays the momma and take them places... It's heartwarming. We rarely haven silence in our home or cars due to her singing. :)

    It helps me to see that you show her Disney or other movies (with singing), as she loves those so much.

    It's refreshing to me t

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