Oh my, I have a little performer on my hands!  You should see this girl sing "the Itsy Bitsy Spidar" or "The Wheels on the Bus" complete with hand motions!  Of course, she doesn't get all the words down, but just hearing her say "itsy bitsy spidar" while doing the finger thing in the air is worth not getting the rest of the words!  I could just pass out it is so cute!  She also has "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the ABC song in her list. 

We've decided that in order to get her to sleep in Gavin's room without climbing up on Gavin's bed, we're going to have to remove the ladder once the kids are in bed.  Gavin doesn't actually use the ladder anyway, prefering instead to monkey his way up any way BUT using the ladder.  The trouble is, once Jessie gets out of her bed, she can't get back into it without climbing up the end side, which she doesn't always remember.  So Gavin jumps out of bed, helps her up, and shortly after, she climbs out of bed again and the whole thing starts over.  I've got her in her own room still at this point.  Kris still hasn't gotten Jessie's bed put together so feel free to give him grief if you see him. 

In swimming, Jessie is doing pretty well.  She still isn't jumping so having to jump off the floating bar of foam to me isn't really going to happen.  She also isn't real fond of having the instructor hold her during the lesson so things that she'd normally be relaxed during, she's freaking out.  I'm possitive she's not going to "graduate" this session to the parentless "little" class.  On the possitive side, her kicks and paddles are going great and she has independently given the instructor 2 high fives.  (Usually she just hides in my shoulder until the stranger goes away.)  She can also actually climb out of the pool herself which is a huge deal for them to teach the kids for pool safety.  You should see this girl get mad when swimming lessons are over though!  She won't climb out on her own then! 

Speaking of that, she's learning words for emotions.  Now when she's mad we say "You are angry Jessie." and she calms down and looks at us and says "Angry!" a few times to let us know just how much.  The good news is that she does calm down doing that.  Also, if she's crying we can talk about being scared or sad so I can sometimes tell what made her wake up at night, or stuff like that.  I have to admit though, it is kinda funny to see this tiny person yelling "Angry!" at you.  It's hard for me to not crack up, which I'm sure wouldn't help much.  Especially when she's angry that she can't wear both her shoes AND her boots at the same time.

 

1-12-06

 

Last night was Jessie's second swimming class for this session and it was SOOO much better then the first!  I mentioned to the instructor that I was really looking for a class that would work on skills and not just putz around in the water with the parents singing songs.  (That's what has happened in the tots I, II and the first session of the III class we've had so far.)  I know Jessie is young for the tots III sessions, but I'm so frustrated with the classes not working on real skills.  Anyway, the real instructor was there today (she had a sub last week) and it was AWESOME!  The kids actually did kicks and paddles and were expected to learn real techniques in what they did.  As parents we got actual instructions on what to do as well.  I was so proud of Jessie's kicks and paddles and she even did the "monkey checks" a few times where you puff up your checks.  No blowing bubbles in the water though.  The "zoom" which just used to me the parents putting their kid's face underwater while zooming them along under the surface of the water for a short bit were real swimming while the instructor takes the kids and "zooms" them towards you and you need to not reach out and grab them right away as they work to really swim towards you.  It still isn't long underwater and you're not standing far away but it is much better then what we were doing.  Plus, the section where they sit on the edge and sorta butt-jump to you has you turning the kids around and encouraging them to swim back to the edge right away, and then they have to pull themselves out of the pool.  The whole thing makes me regain my faith for why I liked Foss in the first place.

 

After swimming we came home and Jessie spent the few minutes before bedtime putting her "blocks" in the right spots on this little puzzle she loves.  It has shapes for things that start with each letter of the alphabet aranged on a board in the order of the alphabet.  IE - an Apple, then a Bear, etc.  At first we just practised saying the word for each picture before I'd put it in the right spot for her, but soon enough she was finding the right spot and I just had to help her rotate the item to fit into its slot.  It is SOOO funny to hear her say "violin" and then she dances around while holding the violin block because we saw Mr Rogers while there was a kid playing the violin on once.  Also, the yarn and nut shapes are the same (a circle) so she thinks it is just hillarious to put the nut in the yarn spot and the yarn in the nut spot.  She laughs and laughs and then switches them back.  Yesterday she refused to let me put on the clothes I picked out for her and she insisted on going to the closet and picking out her outfit herself.  Um, HELP!!

 

1-9-06

 

This has been an eventfull past few days.  On Wednesday the kids had their first winter session swim class.  We haven't been going to swimming lessons for a few sessions so it was fun to get back.  On the way home we stopped by the Humane Society just for fun.  Well, there was this doggy there that just seemed like he'd be a great match for our family.  He was so quiet and tame and well behaived and such a beautiful guy!  On Thursday we decided to bring him home to see how he would do with Mowgli, and how Mowgli would do with him.  Well, it hasn't gone so very well so far which is sad.  Diesel is the dog's name - Diesel pretty much thinks Mowgli is edible and Mowgs isn't very fond of that idea.  Over the days, Mowgli has gotten better around Diesel, and Diesel has gotten more aggressive around Mowgli as he gets more comfortable around the house.  So, sadly, our trial run didn't go so smoothly.  Hopefully though, we have some good information to bring him back with to make it easier to adopt him out.  He IS actually house trained, which they had said he wasn't, and he is a really great and loving dog. Jessie had fun the last few days waking up and seeing the puppy still at the house though.  Maybe some day, but I just don't think it's going to work while we have Mowgli with us.

 

 

 

1-3-06

 

Happy new year!  Jessie is now 19 months old.  She's been impressing me with her sentences lately, talking about "down ladder, cry" and "Daddy up shower, car" or even "kitty go out door."  She will be watching something on TV with us and if the person is upset she'll get upset and say "mommy cry" if the person is a woman, etc.  She is also very concerned with whatever brother is doing.  We have the bunk beds up in Gav's room and she just LOVES going up the ladder (hence the down ladder, cry phrase.)  She runs to his room at bed and nap time and zooms up that ladder and snuggles under the covers claiming "night night!"  Ya, I don't think so!  Hopefully the novelty of it will wear off eventually and she'll be able to sleep in the bottom bunk. 

 

She got a cabbage patch doll and a few other dolls over the holidays and she is quite smitten with them.  She also got... SHOES!  She carries them around with her and claims "Pretty shoes" whenever she sees them.  She'll wear them all day if we don't make her take them off to sleep.  She also got this "Daddy and me" book that has little flaps you fold over to find things that she just loves.  She also really likes Goodnight Moon and will fill in the blanks if I let her... "In the great green room there is a telephone and a red...."  "balloon!"    Oh, she also got a magnet set from Leapfrog that has numbers and letters and a base and you can make it sing the ABCs.  Ya, that's really loud but the funny thing is listening her her sing along.  She loves to sing the ABC song and even though she hasn't got it quite yet, she's an active participant.

 

On other developmental fronts, she is attempting to dress herself more.  She's always been really independent and hates to have anyone do for her what she can do herself.  She'll spend 10 minutes trying to put on her own diaper before letting me give her a hand.  She has successfully gotten on her pants a few times all by herself so she's getting there.  She will put on shoes and boots by herself, especially when she's decided it is time for her to go outside.

 

Last night Jessie was sitting with me and she was pinching my cheeks saying "cheeks" and laughing, then she gave me a big kiss.  My little doll.