May: General Update

Age (in months, or years and months): 31.5 months

Physical abilities: Is trying to do the monkey bars/rings at the park. Does pretty well, but I still have to support her legs as she moves her arms independently. Has developed an increased love of dance again this month. Weird jumping moves where she stands in place with her feet spread wide apart and jumps straight in the air and turns 180 degrees then plants her feet again.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: Singing finally! She started out with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and has added several more songs to her repertoire in the last couple of weeks. She was always one to sing and make up her own songs, but singing known songs is new for her.

Reading/pre-reading: ABC song, Has picture read a story to Stella a couple of times, but nothing particularly new as of late.

Number stuff: We have more rote counting this month: 1-8. She is still much better at number recognition and 1:1 counting than she is at rote counting. I find this odd, but maybe it’s normal?

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc Very interested in weather this month and night vs. day. Seems to be trying to figure out how the sun and the moon relate to one another and the patterns that ensue.

Creativity: same

Imagination: More pretend play, imaginary friend play, is using her kitchen more since I moved it into the living room again.

Social: Is interacting m ore with other kids when she has the opportunity. She still gravitates towards older ones, but is starting to prefer girls more often…or maybe she’s just has more chances to play with girls lately.

Character/personality: sweet, loving, stubborn, argumentative, bossy, loud

School Updates: n/a

Link to blog/websites/photos: http://onefunkymunky.blogspot.com/

IMA

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The girls and I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to visit. It was too beautiful outside, so we toured some of the gardens rather than going inside for the exhibits. Piper loved the water features, and was surprised when the first fountain erupted. We also toured the Lily House and got to ride in an old style elevator with an iron gate. Out of everything we looked at... the gorgeous flowers and blooms, the ponds, the statues, Piper was most interested and fascinated by the plethora of storm drains that we walked over. They were of every shape and size, and some of them had engravings of fish on them. Go figure!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Here is Piper's debut song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". She is more likely to make up her own songs than to sing a regular song. I guess that's the creative part in her. She has many snippets of songs memorized, but this is the first one she really knows the words to the whole thing...although she usually forgets the one line unless prompted, as you will soon see.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Southwestway Park

We went to try out a new park the other day. Erick wanted to play disc golf, but we couldn't figure out where it was, so we just played on the playground and then took a hike. In my opinion, the playground was really intended for big kids. The actual slides were very challenging to get to, but Piper persevered and climbed up the chain ladder with a little help.

She did make a friend however, and had fun running around with her, and then blowing bubbles with her and her little brother. Erick and I were debating about how old the kids were. Piper was all about playing with the girl who appeared to me to be about 4-5. She was barely taller than Piper, but her speech was more sophisticated. The little boy I guessed to be barely 2, maybe younger based on his movements and speech. Piper wanted nothing to do with him, when normally she likes to play with the boys, and I attributed it to him being younger than her. Erick thought the girl was about 3 and the boy the same as I guessed. I finally asked their father how old they were, and he told me the girl had just turned 5 in January which confirmed my suspicions. The boy as it turned out, was exactly the same age as Piper, which really surprised me.

Afterwards we took a hike through the woods to "look for bears", but of course we didn't find any. Piper collected her usual stash of sticks, and pointed out all the flowers and bugs to us along the way.

Pictures from the Park

Tea Party

Grandma bought Piper a tea set and she has been having fun pretending to make and serve tea.