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.

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.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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!

Sandbox

Piper and I went to a party on Saturday. There were tons of kids there and she basically deserted me the moment we arrived. One of my former students was kind enough to shadow her for a while when she was climbing up the play area ladder, and she had fun chasing the kids around. She didn't know what to think of the water guns. She loved the sandbox, and probably played in it for about an hour. I wasn't sure how she would react since she's going through a stage right now where she doesn't like to get dirt on her. I was happy to observe her practicing brushing her hands off instead of freaking out about the yucky stuff on her hands.

So I've decided we need to get a sandbox somehow on our patio for her to play in. At first I thought Erick could just build her one, but I think it would be easier to just fill a plastic pool up with sand and let her go at it.

Short Videos

This is a collection of sort video clips that don't really stand alone. She is just being her silly self.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Getting So Big

Sometimes I look at her and can't believe how big she is. I had someone the other day think that she was 3 years old! She's huge I know. I mananged to get her hair put up into real pig tails today, and not just small ones on top of her head. At least her hair is beginning to catch up to the rest of her. I think she just might be starting to look a little more like me. Yay!

Swimming

Today was the first day the Sahm Park swimming facility was open for the season. We took Miss Piper to the water park. She wasn't too sure of the whole thing, but did finally enjoy playing in the zero depth end of the pool. She wouldn't go down the kiddie slide (it was kinda big) and the water was chilly even though it was pretty warm outside today. She did not like the other slide either, but she did go down it once.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Weaning

I "think" we may have weaned finally after over 20 months of nursing. She has not nursed for 5 days, and unless she asks for it, I am not going to offer it. I miss it a little, the closeness and time that it gave us together. However I am ready to have my body back, and I know Erick is too. I am glad we made it this long, and all the positive aspects it provided for her. I will definitely try to breastfeed again if I have any more children. Maybe now my boobs will shrink a little. :)

Holland Park

We went to a new park for Piper this weekend. I used to take the kids I nannied for there years ago. They have a little kids section just for toddlers and a big kid area, but we went to both of them. I think she was intimidated by all the kids. It was very busy with several large groups of people having picnics there at the same time.

Kids Day on the Circle

The Indy 500 is next weekend, and today was Kids Day on the Circle. We took Piper downtown to enjoy the festivities. We were going to enter her in the Rookie Run, but we found out she was supposed to be 3 to enter. They said we could anyway, but we decided to wait until next year.

She had her face painted and got a balloon animal hat made for her. She played on the Bounce area and went through the petting zoo. We collected a ton of balloons, but only went home with one. I have to say that the weirdest mascot we saw today was the shampoo guy from Great Clips. She liked them all and was tired by the end of the day.

The Lego exhibit was really neat. They had a replica of the track and one of Lucas Oil Stadium.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Ride to Live, Live to Ride

Saturday was garage sale day. I found lots of good deals, including a ton of Gymboree clothes for $1 each. I also bought Piper a Little Tykes slide, a sit and spin, and a pair of roller skates for $2 each. I think her favorite thing I bought however was the Powerwheels toy. I only paid $4 for it.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com