Amy has plans

Amy dragged her diaper bag out of her room the same night (March 31) and proceeded to get ready to go.

Train, from March 31

Videos of Amy playing with her train set. Someday maybe she will figure out how it works. Meanwhile she just takes apart the track and the train and throws the pieces, which is fine and all part of her work.

Feelings

I am so pleased to see Amy starting to name her feelings.

A few times in the last few days she has said “sad!” when she’s been frustrated, like when she pushed her stroller into a place she couldn’t get it out of again, or when we decided not to give her the apple she asked for (because she has some fresh rash and fruit can aggravate it), or when she does something she’s not supposed to and is told to stop.

Sad and frustrated aren’t exactly the same, but feelings do tend to blend and co-occur. Being frustrated makes me sad more often than not, too.

She knows “happy” too, but let’s face it, we rarely feel the need to comment about it when we’re in a good mood.

I try to do good mirroring for her — try to interpret her cues and suggest what she might be feeling (”that makes you angry, doesn’t it?”), staying calm, making it safe for her to have and express feelings, helping her understand appropriate and inappropriate ways of expressing them.

And of course y’all know that I try to talk to Amy about my feelings. Sometimes she mirrors back, and guesses “sad?” when I sigh or something.

She has some books that mention feelings — The Giving Tree uses the word “happy” a lot, and My Many Colored Days describes feelings through colors, and at the library she’s read one of the Pigeon books that has some feelings in it.

Good for her — may she continue to develop emotional awareness for herself and for others, and develop skills for managing emotions in herself and reactions to others’ emotions.

Mostly Mama-Made

Made the dress last year, the pants several weeks ago, and finished the shoes this morning.

Amy sees the camera and wants to see herself in it, so it’s very difficult to keep her at sufficient distance to take a picture. We were chasing back and forth in front of the sunny open door, which she thought was very funny.

What I thought was very funny happened later, when she and I were reading books in her room. I was lying on my back and she’d bring a book over and sit on my belly to read it. At one point she put her foot on me instead of swinging it over, as if she was going to stand on me.

Me: Don’t step on Mama!

Amy: Move it. (Swiping me across the shoulders as if to sweep me out of her way.)

This is from my efforts to teach her not to walk on her books, puzzles, toys, etc. I tell her don’t step on x, move it out of the way, and I show her how. She’s listening!

Toddler table

Amy seems to like playing at a table — she likes to put things on shelves or chairs or the couch, or mama’s lap. I keep thinking of the little tables the Montessori schools have, just high enough to sit on the floor and have your activity at a reasonable height, or others with matching toddler chairs. Another thing is that they contain the activity, to an extent — helps focus, keep things together, and of course provides a firm level surface for tricky things like blocks.

We took a look at the secondhand stores in the area and found nothing. Wal-mart didn’t have anything I liked. I put in a “wanted” post at our local Freecycle group, but meanwhile this little improvisation works:

The shelf is a board left in our upstate NY house, I believe. I had covered it with fabric and used it with CD boxes (the kind my CDs come in, 30 at a time) to make some shelves in the music room there. When we moved here, it continued as a bookshelf in the music / craft room.

Now its books sit on the floor in tidy piles.

And Amy and I can sit on either side of this table with our legs stretched comfortably under it while we read, play with blocks, play the xylophone, etc.

The downside is that the “legs” aren’t attached, so it’s susceptible to being kicked or otherwise shifted apart, but that’s okay for now.

(Oh, and that’s my block creation… Amy looked at it a few times before knocking it down.)

How old are you?

Amy answered, “Kitty.”

Playing house

Swimming pool, take two

Today Amy and I went to the swimming pool again.

Since we went the first time, she has often been saying “swimming pool” and “ah see day” (other day) — i.e. “we went to the swimming pool the other day.”

This time, she wanted to wear her bathing suit top before we went, so I put it on under her sweater. We went to the dining hall first for lunch (and got to eat with daddy), then headed to the pool.

We went up to the girls’ locker room (so many stairs… stairs up to the pool entrance, down to the pool, up again to the locker room…) to put most of our stuff down, get my clothes off (I was wearing my suit underneath), replace Amy’s diaper with her bathing suit bottom.

Down we went. There was radio music on the loudspeakers, two women doing laps in the roped-off section, and a male lifeguard this time, Tim Warwick.

We sat on the edge of the pool and I kicked and sang and held Amy on my lap. For a long time. Some of the time she was a little upset (”no, no, no” or holding tightly to me or saying “mama gotchoo”), especially when I’d dip her feet in.

After a long time I sat her next to me and she was fine. After a bit I went in and asked her if she wanted to come. She said no and started walking around — I swam to keep opposite her, and we went back and forth for a while. Every so often I’d hold my arms up and she’d come close but say no. Sometimes she’d lie down on her belly and we’d put our faces together.

Finally she agreed to come in, and I held her tight and walked / rocked her around for a few minutes.

She might have done that longer, but it was past time to get out.

Three things

Mark took this picture of Amy studying her catechism:

I tried to get one of her wearing another new pair of wool pants, these ones from a nice light merino sweater in medium blue, but she was too interested in the camera, so here’s an outstretched arm shot instead (notice the newly cut bangs):

And I impulsively made an apple pie, using the Gala apples in the fridge; smells nice, looks nice, I hope it tastes good, too:

Wool pants and shorts

Amy’s wool diaper covers are getting too small. So off to the Salvation Army we went to find some more wool sweaters to reconstruct. This first one provided one pair of pants (the sleeves and a strip from one side for a crotch gusset) and one pair of shorts (a piece from the waistband up, incorporating the existing side seam, and another gusset strip). If I’d been more careful, I might have gotten two pairs of shorts.

I reused the elastic from the old cover and pants. The shorts fit great, but I need to add some length to the rise of the pants — am going to try to use the neckband for that.

Let me just say that using blue thread is nice for matching and all, but it sure is a pain trying to find that tiny blue thread to pick apart the waistband seam, without breaking any yarn.