Another Carnival Ride Post

Notice the effective safety strap...a bungee cord? I think these rides are left over from the 1970's. You'd think they would be able to update them by now.

Messy Face

We made brownies today. I think she liked them! :)

Independence Day

Piper loved the fireworks today. Erick bought her some sparklers, but she wasn't too sure about holding them. She liked looking at them though. We spent the day at the grandparents, and then went downtown to Greg's to watch the show. I think she had more fun catching fireflies with Grandma than watching the fireworks however.

General Update

Age (in months, or years and months): almost 34 months

Physical abilities: As I suspected she is perfectly capable of pedaling her bikes, she was just being stubborn. She does it all the time inside on the carpet, but refuses to do it outside, for me at least. It’s ten times harder on the carpet, but whatever. She’s getting really good on the monkey bars and I am barely holding on now. She’s just lacking a bit of upper body strength. She is very close to writing her first name independently.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: increasingly complex

Reading/pre-reading: We’ve been reading more this month and I signed her up for the summer reading program at the library. This is her third year at it and we always get some good prizes at the end, especially more books. She got her first library card this week and was so excited. My goal is to start taking her to the story time once a week. On another note, I am dreadfully tired of “Word World” and “ Letter Factory” She knows quite a few letter sounds now, and tells me things like “P is for Piper, and pirate.“ She made me laugh this week when she tried to read one of Erick’s books. She told me that his book had lots of words but no pictures and her books had lots of pictures but not as many words. She then proceeded to “read” his book by pointing to the letters and singing her ABC’s.

Number stuff: nothing new except she has been focusing more on ordinal numbers: first, second, third, She is starting to really like the Umizoomi cartoon and I think it may help her with math. She loves to answer Dora when they ask addition and subtraction questions, and usually is right.

Creativity: not as much drawing lately, more writing of letters especially her name. She still draws people from time to time, and the occasional object like a rainbow, snake, boats, etc. I noticed her figure out how to draw water by adding waves underneath her boat. Today she was drawing a seahorse who lived in the river, and then wanted to argue with me about it.

Imagination: has added more voices to her imaginary repertoire. I love her evil laugh!

Social: very social with kids, initiates conversations with them. She made a new friend at the park, and I think I did too. (Why is it so hard to makes new friends as an adult?) Piper still tends to be aggressive towards other though in her play.

Character/personality: Has two personalities at times. She can be sweet, thoughtful, and helpful one moment, and the next be screaming and whining. Again, food and rest play a major part. She will not nap anymore even though she really needs it.

School Updates: n/a

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

Carnival

Today Piper finally achieved her long awaited dream to ride a roller coaster. It was really

cheesy, and I think she would like a bigger one better. At first she was upset because she did not want to ride it herself, so Erick got on with her and she had a great time.

She loved all of the other rides, especially the Tilt-a-Whirl. She rode it once with Mommy and once with Daddy. Apparently we are getting old since we both felt sick after riding it.

On the scrambler with Daddy

She threw a fit because she wanted to ride one of the bigger rides, and I was surprised they let her on it. She thought it was a train because it had a train whistle and played music. Of course she loved every minute. She would have ridden more rides but she was too small for some of them, plus it was expensive since we had to ride with her on most of them. They wouldn't let her

on the pirate ship because she was an inch too short.

This is the one kiddie ride that she rode by herself. It just flew in a circle up in the air.

On the Ferris Wheel with Mommy. We rode with some older kids and she was cracking them up talking the whole time.

Library Card

Piper got her first library card today. We went last week to get it, but I didn't realize she had to have her birth certificate, so we returned today. The library down on the Southside is actually a lot neater than the one we used to go to up North. It has a farm theme (Yeah...there's more than corn in Indiana) and it's really cute. She loves the tractor that you can climb inside and "drive" as well as all the puzzles and computers. We picked out lots of books to read. Last week she got a bunch of books about storms and weather, but this week she has been really into animals so we got some on snakes, cats, and dogs. We signed up for the summer reading program last week too, and I need to try to start taking her to the story time each week.

Old Settlers Day

We went to the fireworks display after Old Settler's Day in Wanamaker. She enjoyed looking at, and touching the reptiles they had on display, and loved the snakes especially. It was stormy so they moved everyone inside the church. Piper had lots of fun playing with her friend Savannah and the other kids. At one point she was in a group with Savannah and another little girl. Piper is the youngest at age 2 1/2, Savannah is 3 1/2 and the other girl was 4. Guess who was the tallest in the group? Yep, my little Piper was the biggest one there.

She accumulated numerous tattoos tonight and eventually pealed this one off her cheek. She loved the fireworks, but fell asleep in my lap at the very end.

Happy Father's Day

I wanted a picture of everyone for Father's Day, but Piper did not want to cooperate. We had to trick her to even get her in this shot. Oh, well! Happy Father's Day!

At the Drive -In

We took Piper to her first movie, and decided to go to the drive-in because we weren't sure how she would handle it. I thought she might talk a lot or not be able to sit still. She was pretty good and watched the first half hour or so, then she was done. She said she loved the movie, but eventually was running in circles in front of our area. We watched Toy Story 3, and she thought the monkey with the cymbals was funny. By the time the second movie started at midnight she was asleep.

Rascal's Fun Zone

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Piper had fun riding the go-karts and the bumper boats. I even went on the go-karts with her, but it's not really my thing. I thought it was too bumpy and smelled. :)

PBS Kids Day

We took the girls downtown to Military Park for the PBS Kids Day. They had lots of free activities for children to do. It was very hot and muggy, and the lines to do anything were extremely long. We only stayed for about an hour and a half due to this. We did manage to meet Clifford, whom Piper was terrified of seeing. I think she just hates mascots in general. We skipped the other ones which included The Cat in the Hat, Super Why, Rosita, Elmo, and a few more. We did see Gordon from Sesame Street on stage though.She loved the bubble stations and had fun bouncing in the bounce castle. She started to do a couple other bounce stations but didn't get very far. She was so tired and hot.

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Swimming at Grandma's House

Piper had lots of fun swimming in her little pool at Grandma's house. She really liked the hose best though. It was pretty hot and the water felt good. Even the cold water in the pool got really warm quickly. She enjoyed playing with Peyton who lives down the street. They both took turns emptying out the pool, and watering the flowers and trees.

General Update

Age (in months, or years and months): 33 months

Physical abilities: refuses to pedal her trike or bike even though she used to be able to do it. She will do it once in a while, or in strange places like the grass where it barely moves. Grandma says she has pedaled for her though. She’s just being stubborn for me I guess.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: Even more songs this month. I’m trying to write them down as I hear them to keep track. Is making up words like too “birdsy“, “choo chooey“, “splashy“, etc. in addition to regular words like too chilly or too windy. Everything is “too” something.

Reading/pre-reading: Will not perform on command, but I know she knows all her letters still as I hear her talking to herself about them, or when she asks for a certain letter that she can’t reach. We haven’t been reading as many books a day lately…my fault. She can spell her name with magnets, and we are working on writing it.

Number stuff: remains not an interest, is rote counting 1-10 sometimes I hear an 11 or 12

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc

Creativity: same

Imagination: so much pretend play lately, has imaginary “friends” that come along with us when we leave. Does not need actual objects to pretend, and just pretends to pick things up and has lengthy conversations with “nothing”

Social: prefers to play with other kids and is sad when they won’t play with her because they are older or when there is no one around at all to play with on the playground.

Character/personality: I’ve decided she loves her sister in the morning and as the day goes on she likes her less and less. She is handful these days being very demanding, whiny, and has to have everything a certain way.

School Updates: n/a