Princess Playdate

R has been at her current day care for about 16 months. She started that day care with a small cohort of (almost all) girls--none of whom are still in the room with her. This is because at the time R was by far the youngest girl in the room and most of the others have moved on to the preschool room (her room is for older toddlers, 21 months and up, and R was only 19 months when she started). She instantly--and I do mean instantly--became enamored with one girl in particular, Red Monkey.*

Within her first week at day care she was telling us about Red Monkey, which was all the more surprising because she wasn't really that verbal at only 19-20 months, so anything she said was kind of remarkable. As time went on, R and Red Monkey became even closer. They were just about inseparable and very clearly best friends at day care. It was very cute.

Red Monkey's mother got pregnant around the same time we did, and we were both expecting babies last fall. As it turned out, Red Monkey left day care when her sister was born in October because her mom quit her job. So R and Red Monkey haven't been able to see much of one another except for one day when Red Monkey came to school to visit with her mom and baby sister. According to reports from R's day care teacher and Red Monkey's mother, R and Red Monkey spent quite a bit of time just hanging out together sitting on a rocking chair, not even talking, just so happy to see one another.

So of course we had to set up a play date for the two girls. After a few months we finally got around to working out details and the girls FINALLY played together this afternoon. Oh. My. Goodness. R had so much fun. The two girls are so crazy about one another, and they played super-well together. Red Monkey has lots of girl cousins who all live nearby and her place is stacked with princess toys. STACKED. R was in love. They spent a good part of the afternoon wearing their princess dresses and switching out various princess shoes and carrying princess dolls and princess purses and wearing princess jewelry.*I call her Red Monkey because she always played with this red stuffed monkey at day care.

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!

R's cousins G and Li'l T (and presumably Trucker, too!) LOVE trains. Actually, they love things with wheels that roll. R hasn't been all that enchanted with trains, trucks, cars, etc. although she does have her share of those toys too.

R still loves trains, though. A month or so ago we borrowed a Thomas video from the library, and it was a huge hit. She talked about all the trains endlessly, and recreated several of the events that occurred in the videos (for example, in one video, Rusty has to rescue a train--Henry? someone else?--who gets trapped on a bridge that breaks down; for that rescue he earns the name "Trusty Rusty." For days after she saw that, she wanted me to draw pictures of Trusty Rusty or just to tell her the story of Trusty Rusty).

She has one Thomas train, but she doesn't really play with it too much. Her favorite train-related activity is actually "taking a ride on the train." This involves sitting on the couch and calling it a train, or lining up our kitchen chairs and insisting that people sit on them as if they are riding a train. She learned to do this at day care, when they would line up all the chairs in the room, give the kids slips of paper for "tickets" and they'd all sit and ride the train together. When R does it at home, she puts a different stuffed animal on each chair, sometimes giving the stuffed animals their own stuffed animal or blanket, and then announces where the train is going: perhaps to the museum, or to the restaurant or the aquarium.

Here's a recent picture of R riding the train. She likes to sit there and say "chugga chugga choo choo!" while the train is going.At random points, she'll push buttons on the train to make it stop and get off, only to get right back on and go somewhere else.

Reading to Baby

In the mornings, when I get R ready for day care*, I often let her play by herself in the living room while I get all her stuff ready to take (like her lunch or extra clothes or anything like that). One morning, I found her holding her doll and a book, and trying to climb into her chair. I picked her up and put her into her chair and she proceeded to read to her doll, even taking the doll's hand to point to things on the page. So. Cute.*To be fair, I should note that J has been doing most of the morning wake ups with R.

Accessorizing with Mrs. Potato Head

Grandma and Grandpa were in town the weekend before last and brought R her very first Mrs. Potato Head. Naturally, R wanted to wear all of Mrs. Potato Head's stuff, too. The glasses were far too narrow for her head, so we pulled out last year's sunglasses and stuck the earrings on her ears. She loved them. She kept shaking her head so she could feel them dangling off of her earlobes. Of course they didn't stay on long, though.

Fun in the Kitchen: Cornmeal

J is always coming up with creative ways to keep R entertained while he cooks. Some days she refuses to let him put her down (making it obviously impossible to chop vegetables or do anything at the stove). This was his solution one afternoon: a casserole dish, some cornmeal, and an assortment of measuring cups and spoons.

Feeding the Baby: A Photo Essay

Ok, Baby. Get all buckled in!
Wait a minute. You're a little too high. C'mere.
This spot is better.
There you go. Mmmm, food.

Two stories

"Bittersweet"
When I dropped R off at day care, she hung out with me while I put her lunch in the fridge and tucked her things into her little cubby. Then, I walked her out to the main area, where the teacher who gets in earliest is always hanging out and getting things set up. Once R saw the teacher, she let go of my hand and walked up to the teacher with her arms outstretched to be picked up.

"Cooking Crackers"
J reported that when he was busy getting food ready for R earlier, she saw the crackers and began signing cracker, cracker. When he gave her a cracker, though, instead of eating it, she put it in one of her little pots, covered the pot, and walked into the living room, where she proceeded to "cook" the cracker a couple of different ways.

Why Buy Toys?

R's favorite toy today was an empty tissue box.

Brushing Hair (and some Androgyny)

Ok, so, I've posted before about how we did not find out ahead of time whether we were having a boy or a girl. This resulted in us getting a lot of gender-neutral stuff, including gender-neutral clothes. We also got a bunch of clothes that, at the time, I thought were borderline gender-neutral. Turns out they're really not.

In this video, you see R having a grand time brushing her doll's hair. She will do this if you say to her, "R, go brush your doll's hair!" She seeks out the brush, the doll, and proceeds to brush the doll's hair by generally hitting the doll in the head with the brush. (This is also how she brushes my hair. Yes, we're working on it!)

Anyway, in this video you also see her wearing a t-shirt that I initially deemed to be gender-neutral out of the piles of clothes my aunt sent us before she was born, and thus I kept it even after we found out she was a girl. When J put her in it the other day, I realized that it's really not so much gender-neutral.

Wearing it makes R look incredibly boyish. I think this speaks to the general androgyny of little kids, and also to one of the dangers of gender-neutral clothes. Technically, girls wear lots of red too. But girl shirts have to have some kind of froo-froo addition: a gathered sleeve or some lacy bits on the collar or a ruffle somewhere or a bow on the end of the sleeve or on the center of the neckline or something.

So What's Cooking?

R hangs out in the kitchen with J and I a lot. We're in there for what feels like several hours every day--cooking food, making R's breakfasts or lunches or snacks, washing dishes, doing laundry--and we've got quite a few drawers and bins she likes to get into and mess around with.

She has a bunch of soft food and a picnic basket as well as some metal pots and pans of her own and lately she's been having a blast cooking up a storm while she hangs out with us in the kitchen. If I get any good pictures or video of this I'll add them here.

The other thing she's been doing is lavishing a lot of attention on her little baby doll, and she loves to wipe the doll's nose (something we've been doing to her a lot as she seems to have a constant runny nose since starting day care) and giving the doll drinks of water from her sippy cup. In the video below, she changes the doll's diaper and then wipes her nose, unfortunately without washing her hands or changing the cloth first. (I assure you that this is not how J and I do things!)