What Do You Want To Sing?

School Woes

The girls have been going to Legacy Preschool now for a year and a half.  Both started when Avery turned 6 weeks old and every summer they move up to the next appropriate class for their age.  This past Memorial Day marked the time when both girls would go to the next classroom. Avery moved up to the 18-24 month class and Emily moved into the young 2 year old class.  Avery had no problems moving into her class and very easily went with her teacher without crying.  Emily on the other hand went into a complete tantrum.

Ms. Tammie (Tammie being her first name) is Emily's favorite teacher and has come to love her after being in her classroom for the length of a year.  Emily goes through these emotions every time she has to change classes as she comes to be attached to her teachers, it happened with her previous teacher Ms. Sue.  This time around was no exception and as soon as I reached for the handle to the class next door she threw herself on the floor and started to bawl.  Everyday since then she has stated she does not want to go to school and cries a depressed cry because she misses her teach Ms. Tammie.  At the time of this post it has been two weeks since the transition and she still tells me she does not want to go to school.  I know it will take time before she gets comfortable but she makes me feel guilty every morning when I have to drop her off and she starts to school.

The great thing about the move to the next class has been the potty training.  The 2 year old classroom focuses on helping to potty train and places the students on the potty every hour.  In the two weeks that Emily has been in that class she has come to learn about "the feeling" of wanting to potty.  On two occasions she told me "mommy I need to potty"and has then proceeded to actually potty instead of just go through the motions.  I have hope that she will be completely potty trained by the end of the summer or by her third birthday.  In the process of training Emily I have not pushed Avery to potty train and have yet to place her in training pants, but as she watches her sister potty and then get praise for it she wants to potty as well.  We might be killing two birds with one stone.  I can't imagine not having to pay for diapers, we've been dishing out money for almost three years.  Oh, the thoughts that come to mind when I think about what I am going to do with all that money.

Avery's School Photo Spring 2012

Avery at 21 Months Old

I am so behind on my blogging.  It is now June and Avery turned 21 months old in May.  We have been very busy and now that summer is here our schedule is getting filled by the minute.  Every month as I write these new posts I struggle to remember new developments that Avery has achieved.  There are so many new words, songs and quirks that she has learned that I tend to forget some of them or repeat them in my writings.  This month Avery has been singing more often with her sister and with our new Amazon Kindle that daddy bought the girls.  Both girls love their new Kindle and every day at bath time I bring it in to play nursery rhymes and songs for them as we wash up.  Every day Avery chooses the same songs to play and sing along .  One of those songs is "Baa Baa Black Sheep" which she learned from a iPhone application that her nonna has on her phone.  The other is a song called "Animal Sounds" and she is hysterically funny while she sings this song because of her facial expressions, I can't help but laugh every time she sings it.

Big sister Emily has been imitating mommy and changing Avery's diaper when they play together.  Avery has no problem following her sisters instructions and will lay on the floor until Emily gets her fresh diaper on.  Now that Avery has seen her sister change diapers she wants to do the same.  So now Avery pretends to change her baby dolls diapers as well as pat them to sleep and place them in their play crib.  Avery loves to place her baby dolls in their stroller and then stroll them around the house.

Avery's memory is growing stronger and she is remembering what she is being taught at school.  She can recite her numbers by herself in English and in Spanish and she can now recognize colors and name them correctly.  I think her favorite color right now is green because she always chooses that color when asked which one she would like. If she had to choose between different color cups, "Geen" is what she always says. Avery also recognizes children's shows like "Dora the Explorer" and will sing along with the theme song.  She loves to dance now and will bob up and down with a song.

Avery's personality has also grown and she is one sly yet silly little girl.  She knows what she wants and she has no patience.  When she wants something she wants it now!  Temper tantrums are not yet in play but as her older sister is starting to have them I am afraid that she may learn to imitate her bad actions.  Only time will tell!!

Avery's hair first thing in the morning

Wearing mommy's shoes

Throwing a fit

Wearing panties like sissy (over her diaper)

Little Mommy

As Emily becomes more observant of our everyday tasks she has started to act out her observations on her dolls and her sister.  She takes her doll and wraps her in a blanket and will rock her to sleep and place the doll in her play crib.  Emily likes to command her sister to lay down and go to sleep, which Avery will sometimes comply with but other times is defiant and runs away causing Emily to have a fit.  Emily also scolds her sister when she is up to no good and comes and tells mommy that Avery is causing trouble.

I have come to realize that when the house gets too quiet the girls are up to something or in something they shouldn't be touching.  The other day Brian found Avery lying on the floor and Emily changing her diaper.  She had even placed the changing pad down on the floor for her sister and put powder on her bottom.  Emily was struggling with the tabs on the diaper when we found her but had managed to get that far in the process.  Emily also puts diapers on her dolls.  She is very good at repeating what she sees mommy do and takes lots of details into consideration.  Her actions make me try and watch my actions more carefully around her and try to be a good role model.  If I'm a good mommy to Emily and Avery then I can only hope that they grow up to one day be good mommies too.

Avery at 20 Months Old

For being so petite and soft spoken Avery sure is a risk taker and an accident waiting to happen.  Lately our little girl has been in a strong climbing phase, trying and succeeding on climbing on the coffee table, couches, chairs and even the dining table.  Just the other day as I was cooking and Brian was playing with the girls, Avery wandered off and decided that she wanted to touch the flowers in the vase on the table.  She climbed on the dining room chair and then up on the table with such ease that we didn't hear her through her endeavor.  It wasn't until Brian gasped and bolted up from the couch that I turned around and noticed she was so calmly standing on the dining table with a flower in her hand.  That was a close call!  One day I heard small shouts from the girl's bathroom and found Avery had climbed up on the toilet but couldn't find a way down.  That doesn't stop her from still making her way in there and trying it again so I have come to keep the door closed to that area.

Teething is still a big issue at this point and it bothers Avery so much when she is getting a tooth out that she tends to wake up more often at night.  This will happen for a couple of weeks before we see a small inkling of a tooth poking through her gum.  We use lots of bubblegum flavored fever reducer and try and keep her pacifier close by for chewing through the pain.  Teething has led to some biting incidents at school and Avery almost got sent home the other day because she bit three times in one day.  They didn't call for a pickup because the last bite was right before I was about to get her anyway.  Of course not all of the biting incidents are because of teething as Avery has learned that when people get too rough with her she reverts to biting as a defense mechanism.

Although Avery doesn't speak much she does have a big vocabulary and can name objects if you ask her what they are.  She also knows her numbers in English and Spanish from 1-5.  I love to hear her speak Spanish because she really enunciates the letter O of the word.  For example, when saying uno she enunciates the O so it sounds like un-Oh and when saying dos she says, d-Oh-s.  It's hilarious because she also strains her face to make the O shape with her mouth.  Now I have to get her to tell me what she wants instead of pointing at it.

Little Gymnast

Emily loves having Tumblebus as her extracurricular activity on Fridays at her preschool.  Tumblebus is an actual bus that is gutted out and fixed with toddler sized gymnastics equipment that the kids get to work on in stations.  I am never sure exactly what they do in class because I am in and out so fast in the mornings which is the only time that the Tumblebus teacher is available.  Once in a while I will see her trying to roll on the carpet or the grass at home so I know she is learning something and all I really care about is that she has fun outside of the classroom.  Auntie Alyssa sent me these pictures and a video of Emily trying to flip herself on a bamboo stick that Hayden (Alyssa's boyfriend) is holding.  Now I'm convinced she is learning more at Tumblebus than I thought and that our little girl sure has some upper body strength.  Gymnastics in the future?  I think so, I'll have to convince daddy, but as strong willed as he may be, he has a soft spot when it comes to his girls.