Sunday, August 26, 2007

Quick Visit

This has been the summer of the grandparents. Not only were we able to take C to see her Grandparents Wong, but her Grandparents Lippert got to come visit her! She was unsure of them at first, but after they had been here for about 20 minutes, she seemed to remember them and got all excited and show-offy. It was hard to get her to bed that night! They arrived late on a Sunday night, and returned to Vegas on Wednesday for their early-morning Thursday flight. I managed to schedule a number of my meetings and practices for our upcoming programs for that week, so I had built-in sitters! It was such a luxury. Grampa, who has been dubbed "Papa" or "Poppy," taught C how to "gimme five". She entertained Gramma by trying to lay out her blankets on the floor, quite fastidiously. The blanket thing is a rather recent obsession, as she lays them out, lies down on them and says "nap", "shhh, shhh, shhh" a few times, closes her eyes and then pops back up to repeat the process. All of this with a stuffed friend in her arms. Gramma helped me out by doing some laundry, and C, just like when Mommy does the laundry, helped shift the wet clothes to the dryer. She thinks it's great fun and Gramma was impressed. The cutest thing about their visit, and probably the saddest was the moment we returned home after having dinner with my parents in Barstow. We came through the laundry room door and C ran to the living room, where Grampa had most often been during the visit, laughing "Pa-pa! Pa-pa!" it quickly became "Pa-pa?" as she ran through the kitchen looking for him, followed by a wailing "PA-PA!!!!!" when she realized he wasn't here. She was quite distressed. The next few times we came home from being out, she went through the same procedure, but has since recovered. I think she's going through a "male" phase; she's really enamored with Daddy and was quite smitten with both grandfathers during her time with them. It was a nice visit, but I wish it had been longer, or that C's grandparents were closer so we could see all four of them more often.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

There's no place like home

Well, I guess I've finally caught up through our vacation. It was great to get away, wonderful to see C's grandparents, but it's equally nice to get back to home and our routine. It's taken a few weeks, but C seems to be back on a nap schedule--finally. It's such a relief to be able to plan to accomplish things during that time again, and to be able to plan activities for particular times of the day! We've had a few "big" things happen in the time since I started trying to get the vacation blogged.

We had a playdate for MOPS at the Oasis Pool (cute name for a pool in the desert, huh?) one morning. C started out clinging to me, but very quickly became comfortable enough to stretch out and try to kick. She has a really cute froggie-style kick. She hasn't ventured to reaching out to paddle with her arms yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. She's so comfortable in the water! We spent a good half hour to 45 minutes of our time in the pool "jumping" in. She was jumping; I was catching. She started out sitting on the edge of the pool and sliding directly into my arms. This graduated rapidly to standing on the edge and walking directly into my arms. After a few of these "jumps", I started standing further and further away (further being inches, of course) and she stepped out toward me, allowing herself to go under water and pop back out. She decided this was great fun and giggled every time she emerged. Wish I had pictures, but then again, I was the one in the pool with her! Maybe next time I'll remember to have someone around take a few.

A few milestones have occurred as well. She's such a good little girl; she's going to bed cooperatively says"pease" and "tant tou" without a reminder sometimes and even plays independently, without an audience, for short periods of time. Verbally, she's made leaps and bounds. She calls me "Mommy" now, F has become "Daggy" for the time being and knows Shadow's name, and calls her by it. She has picked up some phrases, like "there you go", "(a)gin" and "opme" (open it for me). Most of her phrases have been word sets that F and I use on a fairly regular basis. She put together her first sentence a while ago, "that's my doggy" when I was pretending to nap on her brown beanie buddy. Last night though, she finally put together the item requested _with_ the please, saying "up pease". Usually she says "up" and then we wait and she'll say "pease". Her physical skills are astonishing me. She put her dressy shoes on by herself the other day, on the correct feet, with the velcro straps done up, and speaking of shoes, she had my flipflops on just yesterday, with the divider through the toes correctly! She's doing really quite well with feeding herself with a spoon--only about 5 % ends up on the floor or her anymore. Just today she started putting her arms through her shirt while she's getting dressed in the morning, and has decided that she wants to throw her own diaper away after changing. Most impressive though is her jumping. She graduated from bouncing to two-footed hopping very recently, and there is much hopping around the house, especially when music is on!

Pittsburgh, part 3: Adventures with Clifford and Mr. Rogers


Just like "Emily Elizabeth", Clifford's human, C could slide down Clifford's tail!

True to scale, C could climb into Clifford's doggy bowl and play with his treats. The learning part of this exhibit was a hand-cranked conveyer belt that loaded the doggy treats into the dish.

F picked up C so she could see Clifford up close. My camera missed the moment when she hugged him. In addition, there was a section where C could climb through a tunnel to Cleo's yard, play with "sand" shapes with T-bone, pretend to be a mail carrier, wear a costume and pretend to be one of the dog characters. The display also included several buildings that are shown on Birdwell Island, including Clifford's doghouse, where kids could draw pictures, a snack-shack from the boardwalk, the Bleakman's house, and the schoolhouse, where little ones could learn all about Norman Bridwell, Clifford's author. C thought the snack-shack was pretty neat. We spent a good half hour in it, serving up plastic snacks. Mmm...tasty!



Clifford is a temporary exhibit, on tour throughout the United States. The museum has several permanent exhibits; however, most of them are intended for exploration by children a bit older than C. One exhibit that she was ready for though, is the rather large area devoted to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Considering Fred Rogers was from Pittsburgh, that seems appropriate. I was taken right back to my childhood seeing Trolley, Henrietta Pussycat, X the owl, Daniel Tiger, King Friday and Queen Sara, all on display (original puppets, in glass cases: these, the kids couldn't play with). There was a mock up of Mr. Rogers' living room, and C "played" on the player piano. She made shapes with the push-pegboard in Lady Elaine's Museum-go-round and visited with some puppets in X's tree and a mock-up-castle. There were so many things--we couldn't see or do all of them. C wasn't ready for some of the activities, and we had to cut our time there short, since we had plans with F's friend from college that night.

Getting on the trolley to go to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Oooh...now I need to find Mr. Rogers on PBS. It was truly a blessing to go down this memory lane with my baby girl.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Pittsburgh, part 2: Children's Museum "Getting there"

As we were leaving Delaware and sitting at the airport in Philadelphia, C and I did a little exploring, and were thrilled at what we found-a play area sponsored by "The Please Touch Museum". I was thoroughly impressed. Of course, I'd left my camera back at the gate with F. They had an amazing setup with a mock large passenger airplane, control tower, and twin engine plane. Kids could communicate with each other from the passenger plane and control tower, and fuel up the twin engine. The control tower had a slide attached and there was simply an incredible number of things to look at and play with--too many to describe here. Prior to that point, I had merely hoped to take C to the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh, not entirely sure that she was old enough to enjoy it. Seeing her interact with the display at the airport, I changed that "hope" to a definite "plan". When we arrived in Pittsburgh, we started to see billboard advertisements with Clifford, the Big Red Dog advertised. Looking closer, we discovered that they were for a special exhibit at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Now, we simply HAD to go...C watches Clifford, has a Clifford stuffie, and started pointing at the billboards once in Pittsburgh. We originally thought that the Children's Museum would be co-located with the Carnegie Museums, which is why we went there first. We were mistaken. Once we found the Children's Museum though, we had a good laugh, as F had earlier pointed the building out to me as the planetarium Gung gung and Po po had taken him to as a youngster. F didn't realize it though, until we were in the building and he discovered the pendulum that he recalled from the planetarium days in the now-food court! We did, however, wish that we'd been able to reverse our choices and spend more time at the Children's Museum than at the Carnegie Museums, considering how much C loved it. Look how excited she was just to get there (to see Clifford!) More about the museum later!


Monday, August 20, 2007

Pittsburgh, part 1: Carnegie Museum of Natural History


"Brrr!"


Touching the "Brrr!" in the Discovery center

After all those days in Delaware, we weren't quite finished with our travels. We flew into Pittsburgh and after driving around, exploring F's grandparents' old neighborhood, finally locating the hotel where we had reservations (Don't recommend mapquest!) we went to dinner at Eat'n Park with a family friend. The next morning we started our big day in Pittsburgh. First we had to do a driving tour of Carnegie Mellon University, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, F's haunts from his college days. They're close to the Carnegie museums, so it was convenient to do so while we waited for the museums to open.

Our first stop was the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (we saw some of the Art one too). I thought C would enjoy the Natural History portions more than the Art. She was most interested in the animals on the second floor. It was cute to watch her point to each animal and try to label it. Lions became "kitties", as did tigers and all other forms of cats. The deer was labeled "hos" (horse in C-speak), as was the camel. She got the giraffe right, but the hippo was "pig". The best part of the museum though was the Children's Discovery Center in the lower level of the museum. There was a bear mounted just like in the exhibits upstairs, but children were allowed to touch it. C made a beeline for it when we walked in, very excited to see the "Brr!" With F's help, she touched it and I was glad we've been working with her on soft, nice touches with the cats. She explored all sorts of Child-size and exploration exhibits in the area. She touched shark's teeth, tried to kiss a turtle through the glass of it's aquarium, and felt lots of different textures from natural objects. She was so excited about everything! It was fun to watch her explore.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Delaware, part 5: tourism


Ducks at Wilmington's Brandywine Park


Grandma Wong pushing C at the park near the historical district in New Castle


Grandpa Wong reading to C on our "at home" day

To be quite honest, it was a tad difficult to find tourist-y type things to do near the Grandparents Wong's home. Especially things that would hold C's interest. On the first day we were there, we tried to go to the Brandywine Zoo in Wilmington. Unfortunately, there was a traffic issue and we were stuck on a State Route, trying to get onto the interstate...for about 2 hours, when we only moved about 200 feet. We skipped the zoo that day, and instead went shopping (see previous post). The next day, we tried again and successfully reached the park and zoo. The zoo is small, but just the right size for a toddler, and tucked away in an absolutely beautiful park. The park was an amazing oasis of nature in the middle of the harsh city.

After two days out, we opted for staying home on the third day. C enjoyed herself, playing with Grandma and reading with Grandpa, and just scampering around in their spacious living room.

On the fourth day, we drove up to New Castle and walked among some of the oldest buildings still standing in America, and along a short bit of coast. After the trip in the car, C needed some time to run around, so we stopped at a small park in the area. We walked past the birthplace of William Penn, an old Presbyterian church and an old Episcopalian church (both c. 1690's). It was a concrete lesson in how architectural styles are particular to a given historical period and change over time. We also tried to tour the home of Delaware's Governor George Read, but C was a bit cranky and we would have had to wait for the tour to start. Instead, we headed out, and by a bit of providence, found the old courthouse museum open near our car. The courthouse was under renovation, so we didn't see much, but one of the docents provided us with a brief overview of Delaware's history and showed us a few items on display.

We left the following day, flying into Pittsburgh for a brief visit with some friends and some museum time. (More later!)

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Delaware, part 4: playground time









One thing C LOVES to do is go to the playground. Here at home, it's usually too hot to go to the playground except during twilight time or early morning (like before 0800!) during the summer months. When we walk past the playground areas during our morning constitutional, she makes hopeful noises as we approach, and disappointed ones as we depart. The weather was beautiful though in Delaware and the grandparents Wong have a playground just a few blocks from their home. We went over each day of our vacation, and C enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa were delighted to watch her run all over the area, climb on the equipment, bounce on the bouncy things and slide on the slides. The first day we went, she was afraid of the big bouncy frog, but by the last day of our time there, she was running to the frog, squealing "frog" and returning to it time and again. The large, slide/stairs apparatus had a short bridge walkway that intimidated her quite a bit at first. She didn't like being able to see through the slats. Once Daddy walked over it a couple of times holding her hand, she was fine, as long as he was at one end or the other waiting for her. She was still cautious, but she was being so brave! I'm not sure which she likes more, the slide or the bouncies. She calls the slide a "whee" (accompanied by giggles), but I'm pretty sure she spends an equal amount of time on the bouncies. She goes to the bouncies first, but she could be saving the slide (the best?) for last.

Delaware, part 3: shopping



No trip with F is complete without a shopping outing. C is getting to a stage where she doesn't want to ride in her stroller, but would prefer walking. Walking with both hands held is best. She thought it was great fun when she got to walk in the store holding both Grandma and Grandpa Wongs' hands. I thought it was so cute, I just had to get a picture.

Delaware, part 2: Buttons!







C loves things with buttons! Another treat Grandma and Grandpa Wong had waiting for C was this preschool laptop. It's a nifty learning tool, with all sorts of fun little games on it. C's not quite ready for the games, but she loved pushing the buttons and watching "something" happen on the screen or with the sounds. She really loves the monkey who hosts each of the games. I'm sure it will be quite useful to have around during those moments when C wants to be just like Mommy and use the computer. However, Mommy needs to get some earplugs before this toy comes out for "anytime" use. That monkey is loud!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Delaware, part 1: Tea Party








Well, the summer leave season for 2007 is, as C would say, "all done". C has taken her 9th airplane ride, and has now seen both coasts. She's one well-traveled toddler. I have several days worth of blogging information, so I'm going to break it up a bit. When we arrived in Delaware to see Grandma and Grandpa Wong, Grandma surprised C with a table that's just her size, and a Beauty and the Beast tea set. C immediately fell in love with both, and she and Grandma had several "tea parties" during our stay. I'm excited that C understood the concept of the tea party, as one of her friends is enamored with tea parties as well, and this gives them another playtime potential. More later...