Yes, We've Been Busy

Sorry we haven't updated for so long, but we've been trying to keep up with THIS ...

September News Stories

Wynn Develops Passion for Ham
She figured out that she could eat from the bag after we pick up the ham at the deli, so now she spends a couple aisles at the store chomping happily on ham. As soon as she sees the deli, she starts shouting, "Ham! Ham!" She squeals with delight as the clerk puts the ham in the bag, "I love ham!" As we go through the store, she tells other shoppers, "I got ham!" It's a bit of a ruckus we cause, but it's just too funny.

Movin' on Up
Wynn moved up to a new classroom early this month. She's in a room with kids who are three years old. Bigger room! More books! A computer! Trips to the science lab and poetry corner! And, best of all ... a MUCH bigger slide to play on! She's usually outside when I go to pick her up, and I always find her on the slide. It's a big one that curves in a circle, and I've seen her ride it alone and bobsled-style with a couple friends. Her teacher commented on how Wynn goes down it over and over and over. Hey, she knows what she likes.

Farewell, Board Books
After discovering that there are many titles about Dora, Clifford, and Curious George in softcover, Wynn had moved away from the board books and up to some more complex stories. The top of her bedtime request list includes Looking for a Moose (Grandpa's favorite), Clifford's First Halloween, Apples and Pumpkins, and Dora's Sharing Day. Sometimes she treats us by reading Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? to us; I cried the first time I heard her do it.

Wynn Loves Ranger
Sweet, adorable Ranger has been having some rough times lately. He's been in and out of the doggie hospital with kidney stones and stomach troubles. He rejects most food, so he's losing weight and is getting IV fluids and antibiotics. Our vet, who Scott is on a first name basis with now, is hopeful, but it's been a lot of work taking him back and forth to the clinic, giving him his medications, and TRYING to get him to eat. Wynn has been her kind and understanding self through all of this. When we tell her he doesn't feel well, she looks at him sadly and gives him a great big hug. We can't imagine a little dog and a little girl who get along better than these two.

Everybody Barfs on Baba

On Wednesday Wynn came home from daycare with a 102.6 degree temperature and a belly full of quesadilla, which she threw up on her DVD player, the table, the floor, her placemat, her shirt, and herself.  (That's right.  My daughter was watching a DVD while eating her dinner, thus guaranteeing me a lock on the mother of the year award.)

Not to be outdone, Ranger threw up twice Thursday morning - once in Wynn's room and once on the new carpet in the living room (gasp!).  When I came into Wynn's room to clean it up, Ranger was pouting, and Wynn was standing next to him, looking sympathetic and petting him gently.  

Today, they both decided to up the ante.  Ranger went first.  This afternoon he came in from his walk and started doing the "pre-game show" he puts on before throwing up.  Scott's pretty tough about vomit, so he put his hands under the dog's mouth and caught it.  Ugh.  

Wynn is feeling MUCH better - even managed a brief visit to the State Fair this morning, but she was overtired at bedtime and went into one of her crying rages.  As usually happens, she got herself so wound up that she barfed - all over Baba.  I could hear him from the living room, "I'm in a pool of it.  I don't even know where to start."

When I came in to offer assistance, Scott said, "Why don't you just throw up on me now, too?  Might as well be the whole family at this point."  

Thursday night I asked Wynn about our plan to go to the fair:

"Will we eat food at the fair?"

"Yep."

"What kind of food?"

"Mmmm..."

"Will we eat hot dogs?"

"No."

"Fruit?"

"No."

"Ice cream?"

"No."

"Then what WILL we eat?"

"Donuts."

"Is that all we're going to eat?"

"Yep."

Yes, that's an inflatable Dora.

Yes, it cost more than it needed to.

And, yes, she loves the darn thing.

Tantrums, Headstands, and Pie

We're getting near the end of summer.  Wynn and I only have two more "girl days" left (when she's not in daycare, but Baba's at work).  Most of our girl days have involved speech therapy, which she's getting better and better at, with trips to the store, the library, and the zoo thrown in.  

She's hit the age of rebellion, and, though she's still ridiculously cooperative 95% of the time, she's pitched her share of tantrums lately.  I took her to Como Zoo the other day; it was rainy with no crowds, so we really got to see the animals and have fun.  She recognized the zoo as we pulled up - "Animals!!" - and skipped along cheering, "Flowers!" and, "Oh, MORE flowers!" as we entered the park.  We had a great time; we even got to see the gorilla up close and a puffin swimming underwater.  When it was time to leave, though, she saw a car in the lot that was similar to ours.  She INSISTED that we get in it.  I told her that, no, the gray Honda with Maryland plates was not ours, but she went on and on.  By the time we got to our real car, she was in full-blown tantrum.  There was screaming, kicking, and refusal to listen to reason ("See, there's your car seat and toys in the back.").  I had to strap her in while she acted as if I were abducting her.  The other parents in the lot just gave me the look - Yep, I've been there too.

We've been watching the Olympics on TV and have been feeling great pride at seeing Beijing and the people of China doing such a great job of hosting the world.  Sure, they had to do a LOT to make the city amenable to the athletes (like getting rid of all that smog), but we've been enjoying watching the TV reporters as they get settled, meet the people, and eventually get that look of "this place is amazing" that comes over them.  When you're in China, you definitely feel its foreignness, but you can't help but be charmed by the warmth of its people.  

Watching the Olympic coverage with Wynn has been fun.  She enjoys all the gymnastics and was trying to do a headstand like the men in the floor routine last night.  Her favorite sport so far has been the equestrian event.  She LOVES when the horses jump those rails; she shouts, "Go! Go! Jump!" over and over.  When they come to a particularly tall rail, she looks stunned and says, "Oh, Big!"  When I tell her that the show is coming from China, she smiles and points at herself, then me and Scott.  We've made it a point to talk to her about China and our time there - looking at pictures, telling stories, etc.  We don't know if she consciously remembers China, but she certainly knows the word, that it's a place, and that we met there.  

Yesterday Wynn made her first foray into the world of baking; she and I made a blueberry pie.  ("Pie" is one of the words she's been working on in speech.)  She helped me put the crust neatly in the pie plate, dumped the ingredients in the bowl, and was in charge of stirring.  She loved making the top crust.  Instead of lattice work, we took cookie cutters and cut out shapes to set on top of the pie.  I could only find a few cutters, so we ended up with an odd assortment - Minnesota, a pig, a donkey, and a bell.  

As you can tell by the picture of her cramming some in her mouth, it was delicious.

Ann

Summer Sights

We've taken Wynn to see two great sights that we recommend to other toddler-totin' Twin Citians. 

The first was the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum.  Wynn has seen snippets of one of the movies and has a toy Chewbacca and an R2D2 she plays with, so she recognized what she was looking at.  Waiting in line was part of the journey, but she handled it well.  There were big posters of some of the characters hanging on the walls, and when she saw Darth Vader, she said, "Bad guy!" Apparently, he's so bad that she can't tolerate the sight of him, so she put her hands over her eyes too.

She did love the droids and the Wookies (Those suckers are HUGE!).  When she caught her first glimpse of R2D2, she started stomping her feet and flapping her arms.  I know him!

Her favorite part of the whole thing was the audio tour speakers by many of the displays.  She pushed a lot of big blue buttons but never figured out to hold the speaker to her ear.

The other cool thing we visited was Blooming Butterflies at Como Zoo.  They've enclosed a garden and stocked it with all sorts of butterflies from around the world.  It was fun to see the exotic ones from climates warmer than Minnesota can provide (No offense to our lovely monarch population.)  Wynn was mesmerized by all the butterflies swirling around our heads. She got very still and silent and just gaped at how they moved.  Even though it was rather crowded, it felt like the calmest place in the city.

In speech therapy news, she continues to make progress but resists identifying pictures on cards.  Today Becca was working to get Wynn to say pie.  She showed her pictures, said the word several times, and even talked about how yummy it is.  Wynn just looked bored and distracted.  Finally I asked Wynn, "If you wanted a piece of pie, what would you say?"  Over her shoulder she gave me the most clear-as-a-bell, matter-of-fact, "Pie."  It's in there, you just have to know how to get it out of her.

http://www.smm.org/starwars/
http://www.comozooconservatory.org/como_zoo/Blooming%20Butterflies.shtml

Work and Play

We had our first sign of a struggle at speech therapy this week. Much of the testing they do to see which phonemes a child can and cannot say is done by showing pictures or toy models of items and asking, "What's that?" Apparently, most kids cooperatively reply, "Cow," or "Cat," or "Pig." Wynn does not. She shoots us this look like You know it's a cow. I know it's a cow. Why are we having this conversation? Wynn likes talking in real situations, and being asked to identify items in pictures isn't real, so she shuts right down. When we get her playing, THEN she starts talking - mostly to tell us what we're supposed to do.

We're working on ways to get her to say the names of the items without asking the verboten, "What's that?" I've made up a game where I show her two items: "Wynn, I have a banana and a potato." Then I put them both behind my back. I pull out one hand, which has one of the toys hidden in it. I ask, "Do you think it's the banana or the potato?" She replies most of the time, so that's one way we can test her. It's pretty much our job to stay one step ahead of her, and it's getting harder all the time.

Another game at speech involved digging toys out of a big bucket of beans. She was, of course, to say what each toy was as she pulled it out. She pulled out what Becca expected her to label as bug; instead, she said, "Ladybug." A few toys later she pulled out another bug and correctly labeled it, "Dragonfly." She obviously has the vocabulary, and the syllables and intonation are correct; we're working on fine tuning the consonants - she tends to leave a few out here and there.

It's not all work around here; Wynn has also been having a lot of fun playing this summer. She likes to go to the park and ride on the swings. Splashing in the kiddie pool is a big favorite as well. When it's too hot to play outside, she loves her LEGO's, play food, books, and crayons.

We went for a walk at the nature center on the 4th of July. This picture shows why Mama's arms are getting so strong. (Wynn slept peacefully through the fireworks that night.)

Here we are checking out the interior of a small plane at our local airport's open house. Wynn says, "Airplane," whenever she sees one, which makes Baba very proud.

Yep, She's an American

Even though she's only been in speech therapy for a week, Wynn's already showing progress. She's talking more often, saying more words, and is getting clearer (and funnier!) with each passing day. Yesterday she cheered, "Gramma house!" when I told her we were going over for a visit; we've never heard her put those two words together before.

Our proudest moment of patriotism was as she and I pulled up to McDonald's to get dinner last night. She saw the golden arches and started calling out, "McDonal! McDonal!" while happily kicking her feet. She pointed. She smiled. She knew exactly where we were. When the voice came through to take our order at the drive-through, Wynn shouted over and over at the top of her lungs, "Hi, McDonal!! Hi, McDonal!"

We brought the food home, and she HAD to carry the bag. While I got juice out of the fridge, she set the table; we each got two napkins, and she put our sandwiches at the appropriate spots at the table. She pointed at mine, grinned with pride and said, "Hamugger!"

In one short year she's learned SO much about this country and what it has to offer.

P and B

Wynn started speech therapy this week. She's having trouble forming some of her letters, which is often the case with cleft palate. She's struggling the most with what are, for many kids, fairly simple initial consonants - P, B, T, and D sounds. We're focusing on the P's and B's to start with.

The therapy center we found for her is FANTASTIC. Their philosophy is to get the kids playing and then find opportunities to insert the therapy naturally into the play. (Much wiser than trying to sit a two year old down and say, "Now we're going to do this.") They do both physical and speech therapy, so there's a gymnasium with a trampoline and swings. Wynn even got to pet the therapy dog on her first visit. Becca, her therapist, is very engaging, and, even though Wynn was a bit shy at first, she opened up to her big time on the second visit.

Today we played with all kinds of toys - a Big, Bouncy Ball, several Pink Pigs, and some Pictures of PuPPies to get Wynn talking. Her favorite part is when we Blow BuBBles. She yells, "Blow!", and Becca and I take turns with the BuBBle wand. Wynn chases after them and says, "PoP! PoP!" as she catches them. When she wants us to do it again, she says, "More BuBBles!"

Becca laughed at Wynn's goofball sense of humor. (She started sneaking up on Becca when she was going to blow a big bubble; she'd pop it while it was still on the wand and then giggle at her own cleverness.) She also commented on how enthusiastic Wynn is about EVERYTHING.

It's nice to see Wynn having so much fun at speech, and I'm learning a lot of little things to do with her at home to reinforce what she's learning in therapy. As we left today, Wynn said "Bye!" to Becca and then blew her a kiss. Apparently, that wasn't enough, so she went over and gave her five too.