Going back over the last few posts, there's not much of snowflake #3 in evidence, so I thought I'd put up a picture or two just of her. She is eagerly looking forward to her third birthday in about six weeks' time, and over the last year or so she has done an enormous amount of growing up. She's gone from being the toddler who tagged along with her brother and sister and fell asleep on my breast if it all became too much for her, to being a little girl with her own distinct talents and interests (and very much her own attitude!). She does very little breastfeeding these days, and is flirting with the idea of weaning altogether (although it's anyone's guess as to how long this will take). She sleeps in her own bed, in her own room, and often self settles, although she still asks me to come in and snuggle with her for a while some nights.
Probably her biggest love at the moment - apart from Family and Food - is all kinds of pretend play. For the last week we have all been quietly reminded "What do you want to buy?" if we fail to keep up our regular visits to her little shop in the lounge room, where she has been selling everything from pets to medical supplies for, well,
interesting prices. She is mother to a family of well-loved dolls (neither of the others ever really got into dolls, so I'm glad to see these ones from my childhood getting a new lease on life) who somehow seem to develop in line with her own maturing: they used to get breastfed and ECed a lot, but now they are more apt to enjoy reading books and can apparently take themselves to the toilet. Reading my friend Odessa's
blog post about imagination today reminded me of how wonderful a child's imagination can be, not to mention useful, such as when I took #3 to watch her brother's kung fu class and she happily occupied herself by pretending to be a cat for half an hour.
Typical of many children her age, snowflake #3 loves most forms of housework, too. A job like washing the floors is a great adventure, but even simple things like sorting and folding a basket of clean laundry can be fun for her. Her most loved household activity, though, would have to be cooking. She looks forward to her cooking day all week, and relishes the chance to work with a parent one on one. Here, she is making a soup and feeling very proud that she has chopped up the ingredients with the big knife all by herself (well, 'by herself' with a slightly tense mama hovering close by!).
She has recently surprised us by getting very enthused about reading and writing. Last time I tried reading with her, she just wasn't all that interested and I concluded that she wouldn't be ready for some time. But not long afterwards, out of the blue, she started reading some words in her bedtime stories. She also started to play with spelling, figuring out which words begin with the same letter as each other, or with the same letter as her name. One day I offered her some dip to eat with her corn chips, and she replied "I don't want to
eat dip right now, I want to
write dip". She went to the alphabet fridge magnets and put up d-i-p. After a few weeks of sporadically working on c-v-c words, she was ready to attempt a two syllable word. She very excitedly told me "I have written your name!", and so she had: m-u-m-u (mama). This week saw her first words in (sort of) legible handwriting.
We have been entertained by lots of musical performances by #3. She adores singing, dancing and playing for any reason or no reason at all. She recently discovered that she can make a more interesting sound by playing two little xylophones simultaneously. On our last visit to the Toy Library, she request they I borrow another one of these for her. (I almost agreed, out of pure curiosity as to how she would manage to play three at once, but saw sense and encouraged her to select something else instead.) Anyway, #1
really wants me to play a game with him, so I am going to do hit Publish and get off this puter!
Going back over the last few posts, there's not much of snowflake #3 in evidence, so I thought I'd put up a picture or two just of her. She is eagerly looking forward to her third birthday in about six weeks' time, and over the last year or so she has done an enormous amount of growing up. She's gone from being the toddler who tagged along with her brother and sister and fell asleep on my breast if it all became too much for her, to being a little girl with her own distinct talents and interests (and very much her own attitude!). She does very little breastfeeding these days, and is flirting with the idea of weaning altogether (although it's anyone's guess as to how long this will take). She sleeps in her own bed, in her own room, and often self settles, although she still asks me to come in and snuggle with her for a while some nights.
Probably her biggest love at the moment - apart from Family and Food - is all kinds of pretend play. For the last week we have all been quietly reminded "What do you want to buy?" if we fail to keep up our regular visits to her little shop in the lounge room, where she has been selling everything from pets to medical supplies for, well, interesting prices. She is mother to a family of well-loved dolls (neither of the others ever really got into dolls, so I'm glad to see these ones from my childhood getting a new lease on life) who somehow seem to develop in line with her own maturing: they used to get breastfed and ECed a lot, but now they are more apt to enjoy reading books and can apparently take themselves to the toilet. Reading my friend Odessa's blog post about imagination today reminded me of how wonderful a child's imagination can be, not to mention useful, such as when I took #3 to watch her brother's kung fu class and she happily occupied herself by pretending to be a cat for half an hour.
Typical of many children her age, snowflake #3 loves most forms of housework, too. A job like washing the floors is a great adventure, but even simple things like sorting and folding a basket of clean laundry can be fun for her. Her most loved household activity, though, would have to be cooking. She looks forward to her cooking day all week, and relishes the chance to work with a parent one on one. Here, she is making a soup and feeling very proud that she has chopped up the ingredients with the big knife all by herself (well, 'by herself' with a slightly tense mama hovering close by!).
She has recently surprised us by getting very enthused about reading and writing. Last time I tried reading with her, she just wasn't all that interested and I concluded that she wouldn't be ready for some time. But not long afterwards, out of the blue, she started reading some words in her bedtime stories. She also started to play with spelling, figuring out which words begin with the same letter as each other, or with the same letter as her name. One day I offered her some dip to eat with her corn chips, and she replied "I don't want to eat dip right now, I want to write dip". She went to the alphabet fridge magnets and put up d-i-p. After a few weeks of sporadically working on c-v-c words, she was ready to attempt a two syllable word. She very excitedly told me "I have written your name!", and so she had: m-u-m-u (mama). This week saw her first words in (sort of) legible handwriting. 
We have been entertained by lots of musical performances by #3. She adores singing, dancing and playing for any reason or no reason at all. She recently discovered that she can make a more interesting sound by playing two little xylophones simultaneously. On our last visit to the Toy Library, she request they I borrow another one of these for her. (I almost agreed, out of pure curiosity as to how she would manage to play three at once, but saw sense and encouraged her to select something else instead.) Anyway, #1 really wants me to play a game with him, so I am going to do hit Publish and get off this puter!
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