Body Parts

We've been practicing body parts for awhile. Aubrey has mastered the upper half of her body pretty darn well. I keep trying to sing, "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to her. She smiles and looks super cute but doesn't make any move to actually do the movements. We'll continue working on that one! Hopefully there will be a video soon!

18 months!

Time sure flies when you're having fun! On Monday Miss Aubrey officially hit the 18 month old mark. She is now closer to 2 than to 1. We celebrated by singing "Happy Half Birthday to You". She totally loved the song! After we finished she clapped her hands and said, "Yay!". After a few times I decided to see if she would have the same reaction if I stopped the song midway through. This smarty pants knew it wasn't over so she stayed quiet until I started signing again and finished the song. I then tried to sing it again using the same tone and pitch and she still knew when it was over. There is no fooling her!

I think she inherited Brian's musical talent. She walks around the house and also at school humming, "This old man". I don't sing it very often here so I am thinking they must do it a whole lot at school! She just loves music. On the way to school we listen to her music CD's and she loves to clap after each song. We have tried to get some cute videos of her singing and dancing but she always stops once the camera comes out. One of these days we'll get her on video!

You've Got a Little Something on Your Face...

As you know Miss Aubrey seems to have other things to do in life besides eat. Eating really just interrupts her exploring time! Last week however she had a killer appetite. I think she ate most of her breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks! No small feat!!!! I thought maybe there was a growth spurt going on. She feels a lot heavier to both Brian and I when we pick her up but we haven't seen any difference on the scale. We have her 18 month appointment next week so I am interested to see what the scale tells us.

This weekend the appetite slowed down again. She ate a small amount of breakfast, hardly any lunch and a tiny dinner. There were some snacks mixed in throughout the day, including this delicious munchkin from Bosa donuts. You can see it all over her face! Hopefully this week she'll eat up again...keep your fingers crossed for us!

Mid Year Progress Report

Aubrey got her midyear progress report this week. It is a form designed for the Toddler room so it ranges from ages 1-2. There is a lot of growth and development that happen during that time so you can imagine there were many different focuses on the report.

She did awesome on it! She had a ton of G's (Good). Some of the G's were playing nicely with others, eating with a spoon and fork, dancing to music and knowing body parts. There were some W's (working on it. Some of the skills she is working on are counting, saying the alphabet and managing emotions. She also had two I's (improvement). Those were saying "please" appropriately and knowing her last name. Lately at home we have been using her last name not knowing that this was even something they were focusing on in school. Now that we know we'll use it more often! She just started echoing the word please within the past 2 or 3 weeks so that and "thank you" are two skills we've been working on at home too.

It's so nice to get feedback from the teachers in regards to her progress. It's hard to get any time during drop off to talk to Amy who is the head teacher. She and Suzi are the two that are in the room in the morning and both are always busy wrangling kids or changing diapers. The teacher in the afternoon, Ruth, is very nice but she isn't there for the academic piece in the morning so she can really only update me on the behavior pieces. Oh and by the way, that latest update is that Miss Aubrey has been having tantrums. I really thought we had a few more months before those kicked in! Ah well.....those too shall pass! :)

Here are some fun pics of her playing. I put her up on her stool and she sat there very happily just looking around. Check out the crossed feet! The video gives you a small sample of Aubrey reading her book out loud. Enjoy!

Mohawks

Aubrey was in dire need of a bath last night. Yesterday for lunch she had guacamole which she proceeded to spoon up, place in her hair and mix around. Yummy! I wet her hair down after lunch and then we went to park. The plan was that it would all come out in the bath right before bed.

Well - there was no bath. Miss Aubrey crashed at 7:00 (a whole hour early). She fell asleep nursing so she went to bed fully dressed, teeth unbrushed and yuckiness in her hair. Fantastic parenting at it's best you say? Well in my defense she is still recovering from being sick and her nap was rudely interrupted by Osito. She had a melt down at 7:00 so we turned to some milk and the rest was history. Her little body needed the sleep.

This morning she got the wet hair drill before going to school I put pig tails in so that the yuckiness wasn't too visible. After diner tonight she got in the bath and we had fun with her hair. Not only did we get all of the guacamole out but we made mohawks as well! I called Brian in for some pics. She had fun waving at Osito and of course the big smile you see is for him. Couldn't you just squeeze her?!?!?!

Sick Day Play

Aubrey started to get a bit stir crazy being home Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We broke out some sidewalk chalk and took it out to the back deck. Aubrey had a great time scribbling and making designs. We took a short break to walk around and explore the backyard. She ran all over the place and I was trying to chase her for some good pics. A lot of what I got came out blurry and/or missing key body parts! She then went for a relaxing swing and went back to do some more drawing. It was a nice opportunity to get some fresh air and offered a welcome distraction from the hum drum of inside. I bet she'll be happy to get back to school and see all of her friends!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Aubrey got to wear her green today. However she did not get to show it off at school. We were home on a sick day again. Tuesday her teachers had noticed she was warm and they took her temp around 3:00 pm and she was at 99.9. I picked her up around 5:15 and she was still at a steady 99.9. Later that night she got up to 102.2 and then all the way up to 104! I felt that was prett high so I called the 24 hour nurse hotline and they suggested Tylenol and said until the temp got to 104.5 on the thermometer that we were ok to stay home.

Yesterday we went to the doctor's because I was worried that there may be more fluid in the ear. Sadly I was right. Her left ear has some fluid in it but the doctor seems to think that it is from her throat. Her throat has puss pockets all over it and is a bit swollen so that could be why her eustachian tube is not draining properly. The doctor said it's a viral infection so we need to just wait it out.

We were home again today because she was still running a temp yesterday and today. I think she was feeling better and was stir crazy and wanted to get out of the house. Later this afternoon we took a walk around the block and then came home to meet Brian. We had made plans to go out to eat with Don and Laurie for St. Paddy's Day. Aubrey had a great time getting out and people watching. She was perfectly behaved even if she only ate 1 or 2 beans and a few bites of fruit.

Here are a few pics of me trying to entertain Aubrey. She wasn't super happy to wear the hat until she saw how cool both Brian and I looked in it! If only she knew...Oh and by the way her shirt says, "I'm a wee bit Irish" (just in case you were wondering).

Hooray Bath!

Katherine came over to join us for dinner tonight. After dinner we played for a bit and then it was time for a bath. Aubrey was having a great time playing - totally hamming it up for Katherine! She was giggling, yelling and splashing around having the time of her life. Katherine said that these would make some great pics because she had never seen Aubrey smile like this before. Of course I then ran to get the camera to capture all her cuteness in it's glory! Let me know what you think...

Shorts are here again....

Aubrey got to put shorts on today! The temp was in the 80's which meant it was time to break out the shorts that we had packed away in October. Sadly, the 12 months shorts still fit her. Guess that means we won't need to buy a whole new wardrobe quite yet.

Today we headed over to the McCormick Park railroad and met Auntie Alice there. Aubrey got to ride the merry go round with Brian. He had her up on a horse and she wasn't super excited about being up there alone. He jumped on with her and she had a blast!

After their ride was over we took a walk over to the playground. Aubrey had a great time riding down 3 of the slides. She climbed up the stairs with a very determined mind set and didn't seem to get too distracted by all of the other little ones running everywhere.

After the park we headed back to Auntie Alice and Uncle Bob's house to visit with them and Bobby. Aubrey had a great time exploring the house and playing with some of the little vases in the window sills. She climbed up and down the little stepladder. She drove the little motorcycle and fire truck all over the living room and dining room and had a great visit. We're hoping to get back over again soon!

Well Hello There....

Did you think we forgot about the blog? Every night for the past week I have had intentions of sitting down to update it but it just hasn't worked out. Why you ask? Well......we are having some trouble sleeping. Miss Aubrey has been cutting 3 molars for awhile now and I think they have really been bothering her lately.

Usually she is in bed by 8:40 each night. This past week she has typically woken up about 20 minutes later screaming. Monday night I figured that I would see if I could get her to lay back down in her bed if I patted her. Nope - didn't work. So we then tried laying down in our bed. Nope - didn't work. Eventually we made our way out to the living room and she was crying and gagging so much that she ended up getting sick everywhere. Lesson learned....she will get sick if she cries for too long! Sadly she inherited that Mitchel trait!

She did better the rest of the week - probably because she didn't ever get to that point. Twice during the week I layed down with her in our bed and never ended up getting up to get ready for bed. Ooops! Guess we both needed the sleep!

She has already been up once tonight. I am trying to get this post completed and get all pumped before she wakes up again. It's a race against the clock...