Another month, another blog post. =)
Friday night a week ago Allison spent her first night away from me, and bunked at my parents house (just 20 minutes away). We never intentionally set out to keep her with us at bedtime, but it just kind of worked out that way, and I was happy because I prefer to have her around. She had a great time with Grandma and Papa, and even slept through the night in her tent! They are already asking to book the next slumber party, so she must have played nice. We planned this mostly because Allison will be spending a few days with family while I'm in the hospital this summer, and I don't want that to be her first time away in the midst of so many other changes. Hopefully we'll be able to schedule a few more of these practice runs before baby number two gets here!
We spent our free night painting Allison's room a very sweet lavender, and hanging a ceiling fan, so she could officially move in. I had totally planned to paint with Frank the whole time, but he politely took my brush and shooed me out of the room after about twenty minutes of painting. It was very cute and sweet that he was so concerned about me being in the fumes while pregnant. Plus I think he just wanted to serve me, and be the hero - which he was! I sat down on the couch and caught up on some great DVR material with a cup of hot chocolate, and peeked in every so often to see progress. At ten, I was exhausted and retired to bed, but I left instructions with Frank not to stay up too late. He came to bed around midnight, but finished the whole room by himself! He is an excellent painter by the way. I wouldn't leave that job in his hands if he wasn't even more of a perfectionist than I am! I wasn't aware of this trait when we married, but it has served me well. Now every room in my house (including the laundry room) has paint on the walls. I think Frank is glad he's done!
The following Sunday we let Allison take her first nap in her new room, and she did great! She never got out of her bed, and there was minimal crying before she crashed for a 3 hour nap. My initial plan had been to let her only nap in there for about a week, just to give her time to adjust, but after that performance we threw all our chips in and let her spend Sunday night in there, too. I was nervous because I had wanted to buy her a nightlight first, assuming she would be scared if she couldn't see well, but Frank gave me the 'you're over-mothering' look so I dropped it. He was right of course - she didn't care one bit. She slept through the night, and got up at her normal time. I'm so amazed at how well she adjusts to new things, and it makes me think I should challenge her more often, because she's obviously up to it.
I think it was Tuesday when she had her first problem napping in her new room. For some reason she just wasn't tired enough to go to sleep so THREE times I went in her room to find that she had piled literally everything into her bed that wasn't nailed to the floor. Each time I walked in she would proudly yell 'hi!' as she sat on the stash of stuff she had accumulated. The third time I cleaned it up (well over an hour after I had initially put her down), I decided that it just wasn't working so I put her in front of the TV (go mom!) to wind down a bit more, while I cleaned the kitchen. By the time I finished that and put away some laundry I found her crashed on the couch. It was easy to move her to her room where she took a really long nap (thank goodness!). Until today she hadn't repeated the piling, but I expect that's just something I'll have to deal with from time to time.
Sitting on everything she owns.
Not a thing left out!
She crashed hard after all that work!
The final step to move her to that room seems to really cause me to see her as a little girl now. It doesn't help anything that she knows a few hundred words now, and is communicating like crazy. I'm shocked at some of the stuff she knows, and how she manages to use it in context. Some of her favorite phrases are 'here you go', 'I don't know', 'oh man!' (thanks Swiper), and 'all done'. She has also learned colors using her crayons. Strange enough, white is her favorite! That one doesn't even show up when you use it! She can identify and say white, yellow, pink, red, purple, orange, and sometimes blue and green. This one really stunned me - she can identify letters A,S,C,B, and L most of the time, but she can also find them on a keyboard fairly consistently. I didn't set out to teach her that, she just likes letters! Side note about letters - she got multi-colored alphabet fridge magnets for Christmas that she loves. The weird thing is that she has a habit of taking the four orange letters out of the mix and moving them to the hearth next to our fireplace. No other color gets this kind of attention for her. And just as soon as I move them back to the fridge they end up on the hearth within the hour. I'm hoping she's suggesting we burn the orange letters, and not showing a preference for the color since we've already discussed that she's only allowed to go to A&M. After all, orange is the color that makes Jesus cry. =)
One of my favorite things is to hear her sing along to songs. We often played her a lullaby from Backyardigans on the Viking Voyage episode where the vikings sing the mermaid to sleep, and she loves it! She throws in a bunch of the words while it's playing, and we'll often hear her saying it herself alone. She also sings the 'clean up' song. (Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere! Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share!) Her version sounds like this: Eee-mma, Eee-mma, eevvbody. Then she trails off and starts over. It's SO adorable!
My other favorite thing is that she can finally say her own name: "Al-sin". She likes to point to pictures of herself and tell me who it is. I can't get her to understand that Allison is a name, though. Every time I ask her what her name is, she will point to her neck and say 'name!' (obviously confusing neck and name). We'll get there. :)
Dancing on Daddy's feet!
First time going out for yogurt with mom and dad.
Having fun at cousin Carter's birthday party!
Peek-a-boo!
