We don't get much (any) family time during the week. Our weekends are so treasured and we always try to make the most of it. Lately we have had a good combination of getting stuff done and also laying low, soaking in time spent together at home.
Here is the latest and greatest with Harper. She is doing great at school. She is getting ready to move up to the next pre school class. I have mixed feelings because her current teacher is wonderful, but the majority of her friends have already moved up and she misses them terribly. Right now she's in a class full of younger kids, which is so weird! I've heard wonderful things about the teacher in the next class, so I know it will be a great transition. She's had the opportunity to play in there to get adjusted, and they'll continue to do that for her until she moves. She's fully potty-trained, which is the only requirement, so it's just a matter of time!
She's absolutely awesome with Jasper. They play extremely well together, and she has been more help than I could have ever hoped for. She absolutely loves trying to make him laugh, and is usually very willing to keep him entertained if I am trying to get something done. She's such a wonderful big sister for him. Once in a while the little Mommy in her comes out -- and I have to admit she sounds just like me, it's freaky!
She is getting more adventurous when it comes to food and she will now at least attempt to eat most of the things we ask her to. She has even eaten broccoli on a few occasions! Quite the breakthrough. She's become quite the whiz at the games on my phone that I've downloaded for her. Her favorite is an educational one with a monkey that leads you through different activities. She's especially great at memory matching games, where you have to remember where objects are on the other side of the card. She can count to 20, though she still sometimes skips numbers, and she has long-known the days of the week. She surprised us at the table the other night by listing the months. She knows her birthday and has declared she wants a Dora cake (much to my dismay) for her next one. She loves playing with her tea set and her kitchen and still absolutely loves books. She now goes to bed at around 8pm since that has worked better on the nights I'm home alone with the kids, and wakes up around 7. She still uses her clock that turns green to cue her when it's time to get out of bed, though most nights (and mornings) she visits us and we walk her back to bed.
We've had some adventures and there is one I don't think I will soon forget:
Two weeks ago we ventured out to Ikea to check out a few things we were interested in purchasing. On the way out there, Harper ate an entire blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese. We were amazed and wondered where she put it all! We wandered around for a good while, playing musical children between the stroller, the sling and the cart, found out the main item we wanted was sold out, picked out some shelves for the living room, ate lunch and raced out so Daddy could attempt to make it to work on time. We must have walked the store 3 times with all the back and forth. Harper didn't touch much of her lunch, but she loved her chocolate milk, though at the checkout line she accidentally dumped the remainder all over her shirt.
When I put her in the car, I took off her shirt and covered her with her jacket, then put my jacket over her to help get her nice and toasty. A short time later on the way home, she coughed, then whined a little, and gave us a look I won't ever forget. I will spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say, we got a second look at everything she had eaten that day. I can't tell you how sad I was that Daddy was leaving us!!! For the first time, I had to get two kids home, cleaned up and down for a nap. That I knew I could handle, but the part he usually does is the car seat. UGH-- the car seat!!! I appreciate him so much more now that I've done it myself. That has got to be one of the most disgusting things to clean after that type of incident. Well, that and poop in the bathtub. I can't handle that either.
She has gagged herself from coughing several times before, so this was not a surprise. Usually it's in bed at night, and we've learned to keep a bucket next to her bed so we can at least have a shot at making it there instead of cleaning up the bed all the time. In fact, the next night after this incident, she woke up coughing, and I ran in there just in time to have her aim for the bucket. Success!! So now when she gets a cold or allergies, not only do we have endless snot to look forward to, we know we can usually also expect some vomit too. Lovely!
This past Saturday I made Harper an appointment to get her hair trimmed. We have been trying to wait patiently while the top and sides of her hair grew out. And everything is getting so thick! I think she truly has (will have) my hair. The back of her hair was getting pretty scraggly, and it needed some shortening while we still wait for everything to come in. I decided at the last minute to not go to our appointment and instead I would trim it myself. I wasn't wanting anything fancy, and certainly didn't want anything but the back cut, so I cancelled the appointment and set up our very own beauty salon. Having had mostly at-home haircuts done by my sister, I felt confident I could handle a straight line on Harper. I think it turned out great, and Harper did very well. She was excited about having her hair cut, and it really only was just a few snips. Plus I saved $17!
Cuddles before bedtime. Harper now has more cuddly times than not. She is definitely not the most cuddly girl, so when she's willing to give it, we soak it all up.
Here she is wearing the princess crown I got at Medieval Times at a work function the other night. When I walked in the door with it on, she just stopped and stared, then giggled a nervous laugh. She was fascinated!! I put it on her, and she happily posed for some Princess Pictures.
