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!

Hats

Despite being adorable in this picture, Ian hates hats.

Hats have become a major source of entertainment for Anja lately, however. It started when she found her winter and mittens at Children's Place about a month ago. They are purple and pink and have owls on them (see previous blog entry). She loves to put them on and play hide and seek or try to scare people by pulling the hat over her eyes and running up to them and yelling "Hoot! Hoot!" It is rather entertaining. A hoot, if you will.

She also went with me to a high school swim meet a few weeks ago. She wore her owl hat, of course. We watched the diving and a few swim events and she was absolutely mesmerized. Although she's seen my swim caps before, she was fascinated by the fact that the girls were all wearing matching caps, but they all had letters on them (their last names). Add to that the fact that these girls were all swimming underwater, some even without goggles (!), she was suddenly a huge fan of the idea.

On our way home, Anja informed me (didn't ask, just informed) that she would wear her pink goggles to her next swim lesson and go underwater. Great, I thought. Now if only we hadn't lost her goggles over a month prior.

After a run to Target the next day where I learned from an employee restocking the golfing supplies that they don't sell swimming supplies year round since it's a summer activity (chew on that for a second), I decided to forget about it. I mean, really, it's not like she would remember that she wanted to wear them, anyway. There were still several days before her lessons anyway.

Then on Monday, the day of her lessons, I remembered who our daughter was. Not only would she remember that she wanted her goggles in order to be like the big girls, but that her goggles were a certain shade of "medium pink."

On the way to the mall after work on Monday, I remembered that there was one of those fancy schmanzy swim schools on my way home. You know, the kind with water that's warm enough so that the instructors can't tell that they just swam into a kid's pee? So I popped in and struck gold. Not only did they have the exact pair of goggles, medium shade of pink and all, that we had purchased the first time around, but they also had funny swim caps for kids. I found one that I thought Anja would approve of and took it home, expecting a "No way, Mommy!" when it came time to put it on.

I was wrong. She loves it!

Now, instead of screaming and crying at the thought of going underwater, she proudly wears her kitty swim cap and goes underwater free of will. With, or without, those goggles.

Knitting Circle

Ah, yes - that reminds me that I forgot to wash out his wrist crevices today.

On another note, let me first state that I openly admit I am not cut out for stay-at-home-mom life. In fact, I've decided that daycare providers are crazier than people who want to teach middle school. And that's coming from someone who chose to teach high school. But since I had/have 6 straight months of being a stay-at-home mom due to maternity leave and summer break, I decided the best thing to do was to schedule at least 1 thing a day for at least 4 days out of the work week. It's basically to insure that I have adult human contact. So we have swimming lessons every Monday and ECFE classes every Wednesday. The other days' activities vary drastically, but we try to get out of the house as often as possible.

Anja loves her classes, especially ECFE, which she calls school since it's in the same building that her preschool will be in.

I talked Lyla's Daddy into signing up with us. Little did he know that he would be the only dad and that there would be an hour of separation time, during which the moms (and dad) go to another room and kibitz about poopy and pee pee and bed time rituals and the most effective way to wash a lovey. He likes to refer to this as the women's knitting circle. So when he discovered Wednesday when we met him and his kids at the pool that I had met another ECFE mom and her daughter at the pool the previous Friday, he asked how our sweaters were coming. I wonder what he'll think when he hears that I was there with 2 ECFE moms and their kids today. We finished the sweaters and started on matching hats.

1st Day of ECFE

Today was Anja's first day of ECFE. We talked Anja's best friend, Lyla, into going, too. Her dad too more convincing than Lyla. But since Anja and I have a weekly tradition of going to Caribou for oatmeal, coffee, and milk, we added it to today's activities. So after a quick trip to Caribou, where we like to take funny faces pictures to send to Daddy, we packed back up in the car and headed to "Anja's school."

I have deemed the entire class a success for two major reasons.

#1 - There was no crying or complaining. At least not from Anja. Ian's crying and complaining was minimal.

#2 - She left in the same outfit she arrived in. Considering there was snack time with little cups, painting, and she's potty training, I am quite pleased.

Anja and Lyla were definitely 2 of the most independent kids there in a class of all 2 year olds. There were a lot of thumb suckers and kids scared of a bear song. Whatever. Our kids are so much better than your kids. ::sticks out tongue:: I was a bit surprised that they played individually and weren't always stuck like glue to each other.

In the car after leaving, I asked Anja what her favorite thing about school was.

"My fav'ite thing's my friend. Lyla is my best friend."

And after lunch with Daddy and a quick trip to Target (is there such a thing?), Ian and I headed home for a much needed nap before Anja's "mermaid" lesson tonight. (Did you know that Anja will scream if you try to get her to float on her back during a swim lesson, but if you tell her the mermaids do it, it's suddenly cool?)

Catch all

Since I've been a slacker (again), AND then Blogger went down for a few days, it's catch up time.

A few weeks ago, we noticed that Anja was starting to show signs that she was perhaps a wee bit jealous of Ian's extended stay in our home. On 2 separate occasions, Dan and I both took her swimming and to the LifeTime "pool restaurant," as she calls it. That little Life Café is apparently her favorite place in the world to eat. They give her PB & J, fruit, Sun Chips, and a juice pouch. She then gets to enjoy the tasty goodness while talking to the respective parent and watching TV. There are two TVs in the café - 1 plays ESPN, the other shows the news. Anja prefers watching ESPN, especially if they're playing foofball (Football) or, in a pinch, baseball. When ESPN isn't up to snuff, she'll watch the news. The last time I took her, it was a big news day due to major events the day before. She looked at the TV and asked why Daddy was on TV. Anja thinks any picture of a man with dark hair and a beard is a picture of daddy. Can you guess who it was? Yep, it was this guy. Dan took it well. Ahh, quality programing on Girls' Night Out.

Seeing that the swimming helped, I arranged with our daycare to do a swap for a few hours in the morning every Thursday. So I drop Ian off and then take Anja out for a bit. We can go wherever she wants, as long as it's open at that time of the morning. Where does she choose to go every time?

"I wanna go to Caribou Coffee Place, Mommy! I wan oatmeal and milk. You can have coffee. You need coffee."

If only her baby brother tolerated caffeine. Sigh.

She loves it there so much, she wanted to go there again this week and was upset when someone was at our table. This satanic looking photo is actually her getting ready to enjoy a spoonful of oatmeal. It was too funny to photoshop.

But, despite slowing down on the weight gaining front, Ian's growing incredibly fast and has started growing out of size 0-3 already. Shouldn't be surprised, I guess, since at last check a few weeks ago, he weighed in at 13 pounds. Just look at this belly, purposely stuffed into a German t-shirt that translates to "cookie annihilator."

The big belly is made only cuter when he has his perpetually scared look on his face. And here he is in one of our favorite outfits that Anja also wore. Based upon the full length pants looking like high waters, it's time to retire the outfit permanently.

He did finally turn a corner in the play area, though, which is fun. A week ago, he hated his play mat. Now he loves it and giggles when he can get the music going by kicking the thing.

And his first smiling video for your entertainment. In typical fashion, the full out giggling started immediately whenever I stopped recording. Yes, the video is sideways. Deal with it. I need to go get the kiddos ready for a toddler pajama party at Anja's friend Lyla's house. We're going to party all the way until nap time!

Haircut

Haircuts are not exactly something that Anja is known for liking. Or even putting up with. Heck, even a sucker and Dora historically won't work to calm this girl down when a paid "professional" is within a 10 mile radius. Of course, we have been taking her to the internationally acclaimed "Kids Hair." Silly me. I thought the employees there actually knew that they'd be working with kids when they applied. Must have been a small applicant pool.

So we have been putting off Anja's haircut for quite some time. She was starting to look like Cousin It and she knew it. She has even mentioned to me that she needs a haircut. Again, I remind you that she screams bloody murder during any salon visits. I'm not sure what she was complaining about. Her hair was fine!

So, since joining Lifetime Fitness, we've discovered that they have 2 things that should be next to each other in the brochure: a salon and a zero-depth pool.

Enter bribery.

With promises of swimming with Mommy and Daddy firmly planted in her head if she let a woman she never met before cut off her glorious locks, we got her in the building. Heck, we made it all the way to the waiting area in the salon.

Enter Melissa.

Brave, patient Melissa.

Re-enter typical haircut-hating Anja, complete with partial cookie in hand, refusing to let go of Mommy and denying Melissa's attempts to put a "bib" on her.

After much dancing around the special-big-girl-haircut-chair-complete-with-a-cushion-just-for-you and a big-girl-haircut-bib with cars (remember, she loves cars!), the cushion was removed, Mommy sat on the chair (with a "bib", but not the one with cars, I'm sad to say) with Anja facing her. A chocolate treat bribe and an iPad playing Diego later, the hair cut commenced. Melissa quickly hacked off several inches while Anja asked about Melissa's little boy (no wonder she knew what bribes to use!), giggled at her new hair in the mirror, and told Daddy that he needs a haircut, too. When Melissa finished, Anja looked adorable and knew it. She told us that she had fun and that she would come back to let Melissa cut her hair again. Poor...er, lucky Melissa!

Anja's feet were barely on the ground before she was heading off to the family changing area to put on her "soup soup" (swimsuit). She's no dummy.

And later in the pool, after repeatedly dumping buckets of water over our heads and telling us that she was giving Dan a haircut (complete with chocolate treats), Dan managed to dump about half of one of the buckets down the back of her head. She immediately turned around and yelled at him until she saw that there was still water in his bucket. That stopped her dead in her tracks as the gears started turning. All she could say was "Daddy, how you do that?!" Pretty sure he blamed the toddler that had just gone by. Soon enough, Kif will be here to blame. Poor kid.