Anja - 2011 Wrap-up

It's amazing to me how much Anja has changed this past year. I guess it's not so much that she's changed as much as it is that she's grown up. She is still a hysterical young lady ("Do you have a baby in your belly? Because your tummy is sticking out!" - said to Dan) who dumbfounds me with her intelligence and speech abilities. According to most "your child should be doing ___" websites, in the 3.5-4 yr range, she should be starting to form more complicated sentences of up to 6 words. I don't think Anja knows that sentences can be that short. She talks constantly and only occasionally comes up for air. But it's always entertaining! She loves to role play with her dolls (and does so in the most adorable little voice), as well as with other kids and grown-ups.

Her fascination with holidays is a new development. Luckily for us, she understands that the holiday only lasts a day (or two for Christmas). So, despite the fact that she'll talk about the holiday for days, weeks, and months to come, she doesn't think that every day should suddenly be Halloween or Christmas. She does like to talk constantly about what the next holiday will be like. For example, she's already told us several of her ideas for Halloween 2012 costumes, including, but not limited to Hello Kitty and a "baby Virginia." Also of importance is that anything she sees that she wants, she has determined she'll ask for from Santa next Christmas.

During a regular week, Anja goes to swim lessons on Monday (loves Miss Paulette, whom we'll be sad to see leave after the start of the new year),

dance on Wednesday (with Miss Gwen; probably her favorite of the 2 classes), and preschool on Friday mornings. Right before Christmas, her dance class had a little performance. They did a "dance" to the Sugar Plum Fairies Suite from the Nutcracker and otherwise did the rest of their normal class routine. The room was pretty packed with parents, grandparents, and siblings, all eager to watch the group of 3 year olds give a flawless, well choreographed and rehearsed performance. Or at least giggle and place bets on the number of girls dancing to the beat of their own drum. Anja was one of those girls. In fact, Anja decided her performance would be helping the teacher. So instead of laying on the ground and waiting for the teacher to awaken her with the magic wand, Anja went around trying to wake up the other girls. It was pretty hysterical.

Anja's version of "Pique, pique, back to the middle"

After the show, Nana and Boppa and I took Anja to Baker's Square for dinner and pie. The girl loves her some pie! While we were there, Boppa thanked her for letting him come to her dance class. She immediately interjected, "Dance show, Boppa! Not dance class! Silly Boppa!" She may not be much for attention to detail in the class/show, but she certainly is when it comes to how people reference it!

Here are some of the things that Anja currently enjoys doing:
- singing (usually along with some musical toy of Ian's; naked whenever possible)

- jumping rope (ie: jumping from the top of the 2 stairs into the living room while holding said rope)
- playing music (our piano, Ian's toy piano, Ian's toy drum, her harmonica, flute, or maracas) This also usually occurs in band form, so someone else must be involved. Also, she loves to sing while playing, especially if a guitar is involved somehow. Frequently, the song is "I totally rock" (from "Bubble Guppies". Sigh).

- painting

- taking baths with Ian (won't take a bath without him; must be a shower if she's on her own)

- swimming (with or without her kitty hat and pink goggles)

- art projects (at daycare and preschool mostly)
- doing her "homework" (using a dry erase marker in a wipe off workbook to practice her letters and "dot the dots" - ie: connect the dots)
- drawing (crayons, colored pencils, markers, pretend markers, Magna Doodle)

- going shopping (Target and Fleet Farm are her favorites, but she does like Ace's popcorn)
- going to the Swiper Ride Store (MOA); she's finally gotten over her fear of the rides, just in time for Disney World!
- going to the zoo, where she recently met Diego!

- playing with her dollies and kitty
- helping with Ian and trying to make him laugh (which she's really good at!)

We are very lucky to have a sweet, loving, funny, intelligent, caring, talkative, inquisitive, and talented little girl!

Bath time

Keeping in mind that Ian and I were in the hospital for awhile after he was born and he received baths there, the 25th we gave him his first bath at home. It went far better than at the hospital, that's for sure. In fact, there was not even any poo involved. Can't say the same for the other end of things. Thank goodness for well placed wash cloths. He did look adorable after the fact, though.

And ever since then, Anja has been asking to help with Ian's baths. Today I asked what she wanted to do to help and she couldn't come up with anything, but wanted him to have a bath at the same time that she did. So that's exactly what we did. It worked out rather nicely, actually. And since his belly button hasn't healed enough to really get him in a bath, I decided to not press my luck and left his diaper on until the very end. Definitely a good move.

And for comparison purposes, here is Anja after her first bath.

It appears that Anja developed jowls much earlier than Ian.

Barkaly shoes

At Target a few weeks ago, Anja and I were shopping for brown shoes for her. Instead of liking anything I showed her, she zoomed in on a pair of sparkly shoes. They were black and apparently the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on. But they didn't have her size, of course. Her next favorite was the same thing in red. Guess what one size they didn't have in those, either. The one sparkly pair they did have in her size she wanted absolutely nothing to do with. Apparently silver is NOT the new black.

Fast forward until today...

I was sorting through a few boxes of clothes from my sister for Anja when I discovered the Holy Grail. It was the same pair of sparkly shoes that she had been eyeing at Target. And they were black. And...they were her size. She immediately stopped playing with her kitchen set and ran over, demanding that I put on her "barkaly shoes." (Sparkly sounds an awful lot like broccoli right now, fyi.)

So she pranced around the rest of the afternoon in that outfit. Cargo pants, white athletic socks, and a green Sesame Street t-shirt. And her black barkaly shoes.

This evening we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Grandma's birthday party. By we, I mean Anja and I. Dan apparently caught whatever Anja had earlier this week. Before leaving, I convinced Anja that she could wear her sparkly shoes if she let me put on this dress I've been dying to get her in. She obliged. Since Dan was holed up in a bedroom full of disease, I opted to take pictures of her cute little outfit to show him later rather than parade her through the germs. I got the type of boring shot that I expected, pleased that I got the full head-to-toe look.

What I didn't expect was to get a shot like this:

Boy, are we in for some tr-uh-ble!

Projectile

Monday afternoon we got that dreaded call. Whenever we see the name Lisa show up on caller ID, we worry. Most of the time, it's a non-issue. But this time, the worry was warranted. Anja woke up from her nap in a puddle of her own puke.

Mmmmm...

Needless to say, we were asked to go pick her up right away. Dan drew that straw since I was still at work. His car didn't make it home in the same condition that it left in. Neither did he. Or Anja. The carseat was later hosed down, the car taken to a detailer, and Dan and Anja's clothing went in the first of several loads of laundry while Anja went straight into the tub. So while Dan did laundry, I washed chunks out of her hair.

Mmmmm...

Then we camped out on the living room floor on a big splash mat...er...blanket. Here she learned that an old Cool Whip container can be used for things other than a dog dish (when we dog sat Grandma and Grandpa's dog, Maggie).

(Not the actual container...I'm not strange enough to take a picture of it. Geez.)

Later we discovered that, despite her appetite for it, Finish Pancakes was not a good idea, but the bib was.

Mmmmm...

Later we also discovered that, despite the fact that she was doing much better, the tiny amount of milk that she tried was also not a good idea, but putting an extra non-fitted mattress pad on her bed, covered by a sheet was.

Mmmmm...

Dan stayed home with her most of the day yesterday, and I took over around 2 for the rest of the night. Here's a portion of the email that he sent to his co-workers late the night before, explaining why he wouldn't have something done by that afternoon:

Around 2:00 I got a phone call from my daycare provider that Anja was projectile vomiting on other children. While momentarily proud of her accuracy and vigor, it did require me to go fetch her. Unfortunately, when there were no other children around her parents, my car, her car seat, her bed, some unfortunately placed Wii-motes, and a pumpkin served as excellent stand-ins. Needless to say, the release is a bit delayed.

What I was able to conjure up yet tonight was the dependency installation instructions, which can be found here [insert link] (these will be bile free).

Luckily, she is now puke-free for over 36 hours and is back at daycare. Dan will be in Duluth presenting at a conference the rest of the week and managed to get the rest of the puke smell out of his car before picking up some friends to ride up there. At least we hope he did. I didn't check and he has no sense of smell. Now I feel bad for his friends.

Sound sleeper

Anja is now in a big girl bed. She's very proud of that fact. And we don't use railings, but she's pretty good about sleeping close to the wall. Most of the time.

The other night, Dan and I were watching TV before heading to bed. Suddenly, there was a loud thud. The monitor was on and we didn't hear anything, so we went to see if the cat had done something stupid upstairs. Turns out, the cat was sitting behind us in the living room. So we went up to check on Anja.

What we discovered was a very sound sleeper, who had landed face down, spread eagle on the floor next to her bed. She only woke up when we picked her up to put her back in her bed.

I suppose it's a good thing that she's such a heavy sleeper since she'll be right next to the nursery.

And for the record, today Anja wants a baby brother. Yesterday it was a sister. I guess either way she'll be happy.

Or mad.

Sassiness is genetic

Did you know that? It might be a double recessive, but with Dan and I for parents, I fear our off spring never stood a chance.

Need proof?

Anja likes to put Daddy in time out. She'll grab him by the leg or arm (whatever she can reach), drag him to a spot along the wall, make him sit and tell him "No talkin', Daddy. Time out! Naughty!"

The other day, Anja and I were out having lunch with Nana. Anja was sitting next to me in the booth and kept pushing her milk towards me, obviously wanting me to hold it. Since she wasn't using "her words", I pretended that I was going to drink out of it. She gave me "the look", silently grabbed the sippy cup from me and shoved it across the table to my mom. "Nana hold Anja milk?" Obviously I am not to be trusted.

Brother or Sister?

Life has continued to fly by since I stopped writing the Focus Anja blog. We did Anja's 2 yr photos with my talented sister, Jill. I had another doctor appointment where we heard the heartbeat on the Doppler for the first time (already heard/saw it on an ultrasound twice) and learned that I have gestational diabetes again, but Kif is doing great.

Speaking of Kif, today Anja and I were outside, playing with the neighbors.

Me: "Would you like to have a baby sister, or a baby brother?"

Anja: "Hmmmm...(pause)...Nope."

Could be a rough spring.