Poolside

We hung out at the pool most of today and swam, played volleyball, and grilled out. Ugh...too much sun for me, but I think Piper had fun and I don't think she got burnt like Erick an I did. She loved the watermelon and ate probably 3/4 of the baby melon we got at the store. And, she actually ate a hotdog tonight as well. Not that a hotdog is an accomplishment or anything, but she tried something new. I could tell she was perplexed by the name though. I told her it was a hotdog, and she knows not to eat anything that is hot or she might get burned. But it wasn't hot and I know she was confused. I think she thought she was eating dog too. :)

Bookworm

A recent discussion on one of my parenting boards revolved around how many books your children read or have read to them each week. The answers were all over the place and ranged up to 70 or so. Piper is definitely a bookworm and loves to read. I only counted each book once- no matter how many times it is read each week. To me, it was a count of how many different books we read each week.

Most days we average reading 3 times per day. We have gone through 40-50 books in one sitting. Some were really short though. A typical reading is around 20. There are about 50 books in her "familiar and favorite" basket, and I try to read new ones too. She loves to read about insects, animals, and apples. She does have some that she loves to read over and over, and she really has to be in the mood to read "new" books, but I can usually sneak them in between her usual ones.

Today we read books twice, not including the book I read to her when she was in her crib ready to go to sleep. Strangly enough she has been requesting this, and usually ends up sleeping with that last book at night in her crib. It has become a new routine.

It occurred to me after the first reading that it might be interesting to keep track of the books we read today and take a picture of them. With that in mind I set aside all of the first round of books and added to the pile after reading again. Most of her books I only read once today, although there were a couple of exceptions. Today we read 37 different books, not counting the crib book or the ones she "read" in the car today by herself.

Just a Drink

We are having our garage sale at Grandma's house this weekend, and needed some activities for Piper to do outside. She played in the pool for most of the morning. When I put her down for a nap I changed her back into her dry clothes. Once she was up again she headed straight for the pool, but I didn't want to put her wet bathijng suit back on her, hence the "baby in a diaper" look. This is a pic of her getting a drink with her uncle holding the water.

First Ice Cream Cone

We stopped at Ritters today and enjoyed some ice cream (actually frozen custard). Piper did a really good job with her cone and was great about wiping her mouth every couple bites or so. She would not eat the cone part though and told me it was yucky. Maybe next time.

Sandbox Fun

My sister's post inspired me to finally get Piper a sandbox to play in. I ended up just getting a plastic pool and filling it up. It was a lot more economical than getting a regular sandbox. She loves it, and plays in it all the time. Now if I could just convince her to stop moving the sand out of the box and to stop throwing it, we would be great.

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Gross Motor Skills

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I relaized I didn't have a video of her doing some of her physical skills. I take pictures and video all the time, but a lot of it doesn't even end up on here. So today I wanted to capture her jumping mostly, and then added in some throwing and marching. I can't find the kicking video I have, so I'll have to get that later.

1...2...Go!

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She thinks she's funny when she counts. She only counts to 2, and occasionally 3, but her cousin taught her to say "123 Go" the other day. Except she usually forgets the 3. Her usual counting sounds something like 1...2...1...2...1..2...go...9...1..2...9 . I don't know why she remembers 9 sometimes.

After the Rain

...just some pics from our walk after it stopped raining. She can never pass up stomping in the puddles.

Making Pizza

Piper loves to help me in the kitchen. This time we were making a pizza. She helped put all the toppings on, with my help of course. I had hoped that it would entice her to eat it as well, but she had other plans. No pizza for her. Maybe next time.

Trains

We stopped in the hobby store tonight before we went to the grand opening of Dave and Busters. They had an area just for the kids with two train tables set up to interact with while you were there. Piper loved the Thomas the Train table and played with it almost the whole time we were there. I wanted to walk around a little and look at the other merchandise, and she made it quite clear that she was not finished yet. I'll have to look into getting her something similar maybe for her birthday or Christmas. I loved trains when I was little too.

P is for Piper

We did an art project I read about on another blog, The Artful Parent: The Intersection of Art and Parenting. You place a piece of contact paper over a sheet of card stock, and let the child paint with watercolors over it. Then you pull off the contact paper and reveal the blank design that was imprinted. I used her idea of the first letter of Piper's name. She had fun painting and picking what colors to use. I thought it turned out quite pretty, although it was very light.

Bugs

studying some ants


Piper has a current fascination with bugs. She is deathly afraid of bees, which is a bad thing because right at our front door there are are lavendar plants you have to walk right past, and the bees love to congregate there. I have finally taught her that not all flying bugs are bees. Now when she sees a flying insect it is usually called a bee or a fly. She also pays very close attention to the ants on the ground. The neighbor boy at Grandma and Grandpa's house taught her to stomp on them. So we will observe her studying an ant on the ground, and then moments later watch her stomp vigorously on it.

Here are some of the insect books we have been reading.

Rain and Hail

Broken windows and flooded streets were the result of yesterday's afternoon storm. I was at school and drove through the water logged streets to get home, even after the rain stopped. The hail measured over three inches in diameter, breaking business, home, and car windows alike. Erick and Piper had gone to go swimming, but didn't make it into the pool before the lightning started. So when I went to pick them up, they had made their own pool of sorts using the flooded street and parking lot. Yes that's my darling daughter in the muck and leaves stomping through the water. At least she had shoes on. She had fun, and we took a bath immediately when we got home. You can see how deep the water was in the video, but the hail had been sitting a while in the heat and was not as big and scary as it had been coming down.

Here is one picture I found online of the hail from the storm. I copied it from the WISH tv website and it was taken by Mark Henz of Fishers. Almost 4 inches!

Here is some of the video I took of Piper playing.

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General Update June

Age (in months, or years and months): 20 months
Physical abilities: jumping better with both feet off of ground, loves to swing by her arms on the bars at the playground, climbing everything still and is completely fearless, enjoys her sit and spin and her motorized car, perfecting kicking and throwing
Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: estimated 500 words now, maybe more. She talks constantly but still mostly in one word bursts. It’s hard to explain since it’s not a sentence but if you put all her words together without pauses it makes sense and is an understandable conversation. The last couple days she has been babbling a lot and I have no idea what she is saying. I can only hope there will be a language explosion soon. Receptive language is still huge. She understands multi-step directions easily and points out about any word I ask her in her books.
Reading/pre-reading: Knows a few letters, can say all the letters but does not apply them correctly to the appropriate ones. Understands what letters are and that they have names. We started with starfall again so maybe it will click with the rest of them. Asks for books by name and will sit through longer stories now.
Number stuff: has a grasp on the quantity 1 and 2. Numbers are not her thing.
Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc not really into her puzzles, but likes her matching one as well as the game memory. If she is throwing a fit I can tell her to stop or she’ll have to go to bed, and she stops generally.
Creativity: loves art time, although we haven’t done much lately. Is more focused on her creations and likes to choose her own paint colors and work. Would do art all day if I let her. Plays on her recorder all the time much to our poor ears’ dismay.
Imagination: all of her dolls and stuffed animals must participate in her playtime whether it is sliding down the slide or riding her tricycle. She put her dolly in the microwave the other day. She must have been very bad.
Social: having more interactions with other kids. Loves older children about 4-6 years old. Everyone thinks she is older than she is and treats her as such. We went to a party a couple days ago and she basically deserted me the moment we got there to go play with the others children.
Character/personality: Has become very particular about having dirt on her, although art/paint does not bother her. Must wipe her mouth with a napkin between bites and constantly needs her hands cleaned. Is scared of bees now even though she is fascinated with insects. Is very empathetic and reassures me when I am upset with her. Pats my arm or back to make me feel better. Very affectionate and loving
.Anything else/other: I am home for the summer since school is out. Can’t wait to spend more time with her and play all summer.

Watermelons

So the new Gymboree line is out, and this time it is watermelons. Yesterday was the start of the Fill a Bag Sale and you could even use a coupon on top of the discount. It added up to 44% off the total. I got some new Watermelon Picnic items and a whole bunch of old lines too. I bought Piper 6 pairs of sunglasses since she loves to wear them so much. Now she has one to match almost every single line. I believe I'm just missing one from this year. I think the salelady thought I was nuts though, but hey they were sooo cheap. Two of the pairs only cost me 24 cents each. Come on, you have to admit she is adorable!