Kof Kof

She's too smart for her own good.....

Yesterday, we didn't have daycare, so I stayed home with Alanna for the day. Got in her 3 year doctor's appointment and all looks good. The kid has eyes like a hawk though and in the process of getting her ready for the doctor's, I was pulling out some barrettes which happened to be in a little travel thing with some additional items, one of which was a Triaminic Grape Cough Strip. She spotted it and immediately wanted it. I explained, "No, honey, those are for when you're sick, they help you feel better; they're not candy."

Fast forward to this morning. I set her on the potty and started to fix her hair. Here's what ensued:

Alanna: "I hurt"
Mommy: "Where do you hurt, honey? Show me."
A: "I sick"
M: "You don't feel good?"
A: "Yes, I sick." Accompanied by a frownie face.
M: Feeling her forehead, "Hmm..you don't feel warm."
A: "I sick. I need grape." She looks to the drawer where she saw the grape strip yesterday.
M: "Honey, those are only for when you're really sick. I don't think you're really sick."
A: "I sick." Pouting face.
M: Getting the grape strip out and reading it. "Hmm..well this says you only need it if you're coughing, are you coughing?" More a rhetorical question than anything.
A: "Yes, *kof kof*" Most pathetic little fake cough ever.
M: Struggling not to laugh. "Hmm..well that didn't sound like a real cough to me. It also says it's for runny noses and you haven't needed a kleenex at all today."
A: "I sick." Accompanied now by lots of forced sniffles.
M: "Honey, medicine is only for when you're really sick. Taking it when you're not sick can make you feel yucky." Alright, then Mommy was naughty and caved in (bad mommy) and broke of a teensy weensy sliver of the strip and gave it to her. She ate it happily.
Daddy: "Do you feel better?"
A: With a huge smile "Yes!"

Hoh boy. So now I need to lay the hammer down if it happens again. It's that uncomfortable position of not wanting to second guess her symptoms if she really is sick, but also not wanting her to keep using ploys to get her way.

Running Away to Join the Circus

A coworker mentioned this to me a while back and I thought it sounded really neat! There is a school over in St Paul that is for the Circus Arts Circus Jueventas.

We went ahead and enrolled Alanna in their toddler class and her first class was this past Saturday. There were 12 kids there and she was the youngest having just turned 3. She actually did really really well aside from the structure piece of the class. There were about 4 parents that needed to be near their children during the class and I was one of them, but I think in the next week or two, I'll be able to sit back and just let her do her thing without having to be right there.

They started off with some stretching and she had a little trouble understanding what they wanted her to do, but figured it out halfway through with some help. Then they started into this round robin type routine where they began the kids starting down a ramp with a somersault then moving on to standing in a hula hoop and throwing rings over a cone, then to a balance beam which was not the traditional beam, but more like two flexible pipes duct taped together, and finally to a little 'hill' (Alanna called it a rainbow) that they had to climb up on one side and slide down the other. Then they repeated that cycle several times and near the end doing backwards somersaults instead of frontwards. Alanna caught on to the rotation near the end, but I think it was hard for her to stay in tune with where she should be going next versus just wanting to play on whichever one struck her fancy. She practically raced across the balance beam.

Then they split the kids into three groups and started them at different stations. Alanna started on the trampoline. She was to jump in one spot, circle her arms back, then stop on command putting her hands palms forward in front of her, then arms up above her head before walking back. She did really well with the stopping and putting her arms up, but wanted to run in place jump rather than jumping with both of her feet together.

Then she got to move on to the handstand/balancing area. There were two wooden blocks for her to put one foot on each. Then they had her lift one leg at a time and balance. Then they flipped her upside down to do a handstand. She has fantastic balance and did great with it!

Lastly, they took turns on the globe. This is a huge ball that they stand on and balance. She did great with it and actually turned around once without losing her balance.

So now, we practice. We got a little mini jumper trampoline to work with her on and I brought my pilates mat upstairs so that she could somerault and we'd do stretches. I was really worried that she wouldn't like it, but as soon as we got home she wanted to practice, so we'll see how next class goes.

Two Ships in the Night

I'm a little behind in some of the things I wanted to blog, so forgive me as I ramble on.

This happened this past August while my mother and stepdad, Joe, were in town.

Joe keeps trying to corrupt Alanna in a haha funny look what Grandpa taught her type of way. For example he'll ask her if she wants a chew just to see the look on my face of horror.

We were in the van heading over to Lori and Scott's house and we drove past the movie theatre where we had gone to see 'Madagascar' recently. Alanna picks up on the smallest things sometimes and it never ceases to amaze me. She looked out of the window, saw the theatre and exclaimed 'Mad Ass Car!' to which mommy calmly replied, "Yes, honey, that's where we went to see the movie 'Madagascar' emphasizing the pronunciation. Joe latched right onto this and thought it would be fun to teach her some more words that sound like swearing.

He looked at her and said, "Alanna are you a Little Ship?" Mommy new perfectly well that Alanna has no problem saying her 'P's' even though Grandpa Joe was surely hoping they would come out like 'T's'. She replied, "I'm a Little Ship" and Mommy quickly jumped in and said, "That's right and Grandpa Joe is a Big Ship, isn't he?" To my delight, she replied, "Grandpa Joe is a BIG SHIP!"

Ha!

Birthday

Alanna turned 3 on the 22nd. Amazing that the last 3 years have just flown by so quickly.

With the power out, I rationed her gifts to her so her birthday has really extended about a week long in entertainment value. We did go to the evil Chucky Cheese's restaurant on Friday night where they proceeded to give her a crown and balloon, free cotton candy (they're just loving the fact that they're jacking my kid up on sugar), and the opportunity to dance with a giant mouse to get free tickets.

The food is disgusting cardboard-like crust with some cheese and pepperoni smooshed on top, not that she noticed as she was far too busy feeding coins into the Hungry Hippos game and playing contentedly. Of course after we cashed in our tickets for her little play dress up purse, THEN she was hungry! She had a lot of fun though and that's what counts and I think we're safe now from the rat for another year. Hmm..wouldn't it be fun if Chucky Cheese and Mickey were in a wrestling bout?

I did need to move her actual Birthday Fiesta to this coming weekend as I just wasn't comfortable holding the party at our house with no power or moving it somewhere else on such short notice. Something just didn't feel right about having the kids outside playing after the storm results--here kids, go play with the downed power lines..that's right, the one right next to the chain link fence! Luckily, Cub was very accomodating about changing the dates for her cake and balloons and I know she'll have a great time. The weekend should be a lot of fun for her with her party coming on Saturday and then we'll be attending Dragon Tales Live on Sunday.

We're putting her to work picking up walnuts. She thinks it's like the Hi Ho CherryO game. Ah, the naivete of youth.

No More Diapers!!

Woooohooo! Well, that pretty much sums it up. We now will save a minimum of $16 weekly (don't worry I'm sure something else will come up that we end up having to spend it on) on diapers. Miss Alanna is officially potty trained and in her own words "big girl now!".

Something made her turn the corner in the last week and it all just 'clicked'. She's been wearing big girl panties during the day with no accidents and pull-ups at night, although she's been keeping those dry too. She actually wakes mommy up if she needs to go in the middle of the night.

Now we just have to work on phasing out the sticker and pez rewards, but they're still far less of a cost than the diapers were. I'm still getting used to 'trusting' her to tell us if she needs to go and her pants don't fit quite right now..they slide off her butt LOL! So, I'm having to safety pin them depending on the pair.

We're very lucky to have such a good little girl (makes me even more scared to even think about having another as we'd likely get jinxed). She decided to go poo poo first, then letting us know about pee pee quickly followed and right away she's dry through the night. I surely am not compaining!! :)

What I Say You Say

We've entered into the major 'parrotting' phase with Alanna. She'd go through little moments of repeating us before, but not for long phrases or sentences. Well, I can officially say we're past that.

Luckily, we've cleaned up our language in front of her considerably, so that hopefully she won't pick up anything *naughty* from home anyway. However, mommy did a boo boo this weekend.
We were heading to the grocery store on our mommy/daughter grocery trip and I went to turn to go up the next aisle and the car to my right blew her stop sign and shot me a dirty look. Talking to no one other than to myself and the closed windows in the car, I growled, "Look lady, you've got a stop sign!". To which I then heard this little bitty voice in the back say, "lady you have stop sign!" Oooops!

Now the other incarnation is that in a sick and twisted parental amusement sort of way, it's kinda fun to have her say things just for amusement sake because it comes out so darn cute.

An example of this happened last night. As mentioned in a previous post, Miss Alanna is a bit obsessed with the concept of money and we're trying (or Mommy at least is) to teach her that it doesn't grow on trees etc. So, Daddy was playing with her last night with her play cash register and fake groceries, ringing things up and paying for them. Alanna was all excited to show him the money in the cash register drawer (the little yellow coins actually from the Yahtzee game is what they were using). Next thing I hear from across the room is this little bitty voice saying gleefully, "I'm a Capitalist!!!" DADDY!!!!!!!

Uh Oh

In an effort to budget and also teach Alanna about money at the same time, we came up with the brilliant idea of going ahead and giving her an allowance.

This would accomplish a couple things:
1) Limit the amount of money Mommy & Daddy are tempted to spend on her.
2) Allow her to see the implications of her choices and let her pick out her own things that she wanted.
3) Help us to teach her about saving and sharing, as she must save a little of her money and give a little of her money every two weeks when she gets her allowance.

So far, it's actually worked pretty well. We don't buy her toys on impulse, she gets to weigh out exactly what she wants to spend her money on and is starting to figure out the concept of having to give something to get something at the store (i.e. things don't just *poof* into the house). We've also been working with the idea of saving the money in the piggy bank and showing her that the ATM is actually a big piggy bank for Mommy & Daddy by bringing her with when we deposit money and don't take any out so that she doesn't think it's just a money machine.

Here's the uh oh...
A couple weeks ago we went to the Renaissance Festival. On the way out the door Alanna piped up, "Spend all Daddy's money!!???"

And this past week, she was upset because she didn't want to go to daycare and blurted out in a hopeful tone, "Go spend money? That be fun!"

Hoh boy...perhaps we should have thought this through a little better....