Emotional understandings

My husband shared a little Sasha story with me that I wanted to write down.
She was watching the movie Toy Story 2. There's a part where Woody has a bad dream that he loses his arm and is thrown away and is very sad. Well, Sasha watched this part of the movie with dismay, and started crying. My husband comforted her and asked her if she was crying because she was sad, and she said yes. She said said the movie made her sad. Fortunately the bad dream part of the movie ended, and he was able to show her that it was all just a bad dream, that Woody was okay. She seemed reassured by this.
She has been really well at reading emotions on people too. Her grandma was having a bad day, then to top it off, she spilled a glass of tea all over the floor. Sasha saw that her grandma was very frustrated and tried to make her feel better. "It's okay Grandma", Sasha said as she hugged her grandma's leg.

These little stories reminded me of an interesting article I read the other day. It was some study that researchers did on toddler social skills and emotional understanding. I found it hilarious that the researchers made the kids watch scenes from the tv show The Office.

Working and Waiting

One very long month down, and one very long month to go. We are definitely making the move to Montana in early June. A lot of preparation has gone into this so far, and there is still a ton of preparation to go.
Jon and Sasha have been out there for the last month. We all miss each other terribly, but we all believe it is for the greater good. The environment has been so incredibly healthy for my husband and for Sasha. They are thriving and happy out there. In contrast to the environment in the city, where my husband's physical and mental health were deteriorating. They spent the last three years holed up inside a small apartment, and it was really taking a toll on them both. But now they're free and taking advantage of the great outdoors, and the great family support system set up out in Montana.
And a few pictures above. On Mother's day, Sasha helped everyone relay the bricks on the deck at my in-law's house. Sasha was a very helpful observer. And yes, my husband has put on some weight out there, thank goodness! :)

Speech Improvements

Sasha's undergone quite a speech improvement in the week she's been gone. Probably coincidence, but she has had a ton of new people to talk to so that could have something to do with it too. She is loving all the attention she is getting from her devoted family and friends in Montana.
Most notably, her pronoun usage and sentence grammar has improved. For example, a week or two ago, if she had wanted to go to her beloved store, Ikea (she could seriously identify the Ikea building while we drive by and point it out from like a mile away), she would say, "go Ikea!!". But now she can say the complete sentence, clearly enunciated: "I want to go to Ikea!".

Sasha has a little group of family and friends that visit daily specifically to see and play with Sasha. They are older ladies, and they do adore her very much. Sasha was cracking them up. They would ask Sasha a question that they knew Sasha would answer "no" to. Like, "Do you want a nap?", and she would reply. "Ummmmmm, NO!". It's hard to explain exactly how she said it, but just the tone and way she replied was really funny. The "NO!" part was quite forceful, but combined with her little "ummmmmm" made it sound like she was almost considering it for a moment.

I love the way she still says some things. Like if I tell her "I miss you", she asks me, "You miss Sasha??? You miss me?".
Just small things, but they're very Sasha-like things that she says.

Oh and in a sort of related side note, I found this article on toddler speech, specifically "echolalia" or toddler repetition, very fascinating.

Luggage lost

This seems to happen a lot to us. Of course, when my husband arrived at his destination airport, his luggage was not there.
Fortunately, I married that man for his brains :)
He cleverly packed the luggage to account for the likelihood that the main luggage would get lost. He packed a spare set of clothes for Sasha and himself in the carry-on baggage. And some extra pull-ups for Sasha. And anything really necessary to survive a day or two without the main luggage.
He also packed the toilet seat adapter in carry-on. This was wise, as Sasha's been day-time potty trained since before she turned two.

Before they left, my husband and I talked about Sasha and how she would fare with going potty during and after her trip. Every time I've ever tried to take her to a public restroom, she became anxious and scared. She's always refused to use a public toilet. Factor in the automatic flushing toilets they usually have at airports, and I feared it would be the equivalent of a toddler horror flick. (Hah, automatic flushers as a toddler horror film. I crack myself up.).
But I was wrong. At the airport, Sasha announced to my husband that she had to go potty. He took her and they did have those horrible auto-flushers. He put the adapter potty seat on the public toilet. She hopped on and went potty as usual. Everytime someone flushed, she asked my husband "What's that noise?". ("What's That Noise" has been a fun game of hers lately, especially when she's submerged in the bathtub). She also asked "What's that noise?" everytime someone washed their hands or used the hand dryers.
But she did fine.

They did find the lost luggage, but they refused to ship it to him. They claim they had it rotating on the carousel all along and that my husband merely failed to recognize his own luggage. Um, no. Totally untrue but whatever. So he has to go back to the airport tomorrow (which is not a short drive) to pick it up.
At least my husband and daughter made it to their destination safe and sound. And Sasha can go potty as usual :)

Flight

Sasha and her Daddy had a good flight to Montana this morning! We will miss them terribly while they are gone. Hopefully we can be reunited soon. I was quite emotional yesterday and this morning, as I hate to be apart from my husband, or especially Sasha.
Sasha had her own seat on the flight, and my husband brought the car-seat along for her to sit in. He had our iPod fully prepped with her favorite videos. He says she did really well. She was a perfect angel, gave my husband no difficulties at all, asked questions about what was going on. By the second flight (there was a layover in Denver), she was a pro and knew what to expect, and was telling my husband what the next step would be.

If all goes well with them on their trip, we hope to be able to move permanently. It should be very VERY good for our family if we do. We really hate it in the big city where we are now. I love my job but it would be healthier and happier for everyone if my husband could work in Montana, and then I could play stay-at-home mom for a few years. So far, it looks like the cards are lining up right for us.

Meanwhile, the home just does not feel right without a two year old underfoot.
My husband calls me to report all that she does, mostly to help me feel better. So I'll still have lots to report about her and her fun vacation!

I don't want to forget this

Last night, as I tucked Sasha in to bed, we had a very heartwarming conversation that I never want to forget. I knew that in the morning, I would have to take Sasha to the airport, so I was especially emotional and trying to enjoy my last "nini" with her before we are reunited again in Montana.
Sasha had been intermittently crabby all day due to her vaccination, which is very very out of character for her. She's usually darned near to a perfect angel. I guess it was a blessing in disguise to see how crabby she can potentially be, so I can appreciate how well behaved she is all the time. But I hated knowing that she wasn't feeling well.
At bedtime, I was tucking her in. She was a bit more antsy than usual. Normally, I ask her what songs she wants me to sing, and she makes song requests/demands like I'm some sort of jukebox.
But this night was different. She sang the songs to me instead.
She sang many songs, the usual night time songs: Twinkle Twinkle, Close your eyes and sleep (from Yo Gabba Gabba) and Nap Time (also Yo Gabba Gabba), 5 little monkeys, ABC's.
Then she started to wind herself down. We were laying down and she turned to me and said, "I want a hug Mom".
She gave me a hug, but wasn't happy with it. She kept tugging at me to move closer to her. "You're heavy mom!", she said and she wasn't happy until I put my head on top of hers. She gave me big hugs and kisses.
"I love you mom", she said.
"I love you too, Sasha", I answered back.
"You love me? You love Sasha?", she asked, and I replied that I really really did love her very much.
"I'm happy", she sighed. "Are you happy Mom? Be happy okay?"
I wondered whether she knew how anxious I was that she was leaving the next morning. It really seemed like she was comforting me and I found myself silently crying, making sure that she didn't notice.
I think I accidentally said aloud that I miss her already. She replied, "you miss me? You miss me mom." She repeated that about 7 times and told me to "be happy okay?".
She fell asleep hugging me.
I love this child so very very much.

Trip

Well, I haven't really mentioned this here lately, but Sasha and her dad are going on a big trip! They're flying out to visit my husband's family in Montana (especially his mom, Sasha's Grandma), and to hopefully get a job out there so we can move. Cassie still has school so we can't go with until school is out.

Today, we spent a good part of the day getting ready. It was very hectic, with Sasha's 2 1/2 year pediatrician exam, her crabbiness after her shots, and trying to get everyone packed and ready.
After Sasha woke up from her afternoon nap, I took her to her preschool program so that she could play with some kids her age, and so that my husband could pack and nap if he needed. As always, she had a blast! There are so many toys to play with, and kids and activities. She made an arts-and-crafts project, did some pretend play with the kids (they pretended they were grocery shopping). The teacher always has a story time, and Sasha sat well for story time, and participated by answering questions. The story was about birds, and the teacher (Chris) would point to a bird and would ask the class what color it was, and Sasha was quick to answer.
Then it was Open Gym time, where the kids got to play in the school gymnasium, with bikes and balls. Sasha still can't quite figure out how to pedal a tricycle yet. She sat on one for a few seconds, gave it a half-hearted attempt, then ran off to play with her beloved toy car instead.

We left a little earlier than usual so that we could get Sasha home in time for an early bedtime. Her flight tomorrow is VERY early, so we'll have to wake up about 4am, much earlier than her usual 9-10am wake-up time.

2 1/2 year exam

Sasha had her 2 1/2 year exam today. She was quite prepared for it. Months of playing with her doctor set, pretending that she was a doctor helped. I also let her know the day before in advance that "Tomorrow, you will go see the doctor!". She seemed to understand. We also let her know when she woke up in the morning, and when we were on the way. "First, we are going to McDonalds, then we will go see the doctor!".
So yeah, she was very ready.
She loves to play in the waiting area so she had a little fun with that. When we were escorted to the exam room, the nurse wanted her to take off her clothes and step on the scale in just her underwear and t-shirt. Sasha loves stepping on the scale at home too, so she was a pro at the scale. She did not, however, like it at all when the nurse tried to get her height. After a few protests, the nurse had to take her height the old fashioned way, by laying Sasha down on the exam table, drawing pencil marks at the top of Sasha's head and feet on the paper, and measuring the marks.

Sasha weighed 27lbs and was 37 inches tall. Yay. For a child who once had low weight issues, she's back on track. Her growth chart looked like a big "S", but we're back on the upswing and all caught up. She's even ahead on height, so maybe this girl got lucky and got her height from her tall daddy instead of her short mommy.

The doctor examined Sasha and all is well. Nothing new with the umbilical hernia. The plan is still to hope it closes on it's own by age 4-5, otherwise surgery will be required.
The pediatrician was concerned that Sasha drinks too much milk and doesn't eat enough iron-rich foods, so we had another blood iron test. Sasha's blood iron was fine, fortunately. No anemia. Not sure how she isn't anemic but I suppose it might be the Flintstone's vitamins helping :)
Sasha had a hepatitis vaccination and didn't cry one bit! I am amazed. She was just fine with the shot, and was happy to have a band-aid.
A few hours after the vaccine, Sasha got very crabby. She never naps anymore but we finally had to put her down for a nap.

No, I'm Sasha!

We were eating out at Applebee's for lunch together as a family the other day. There was a woman in a nearby table, and she was eating alone. I think she stepped away from her table to use the restroom. As she returned back to her table, she passed by our table. Sasha had already decided she was done eating and was singing and playing to entertain herself and everybody else, and was generally being cute.
As the woman passed by her table, she addressed Sasha:
"Oh, you are a cute little munchkin aren't you?", she said.
"No! I'm Sasha!", Sasha quickly corrected her.

She's been doing that lately with a lot of things we say.
"Sasha, are you running around naked again?", I asked today.
"No Mom, I'm Sasha!" she replied defensively.

Things I've learned

My older daughter, Cassie, is 14 years old. It was quite a long time ago that she was Sasha's age. I was a young mother, made some good decisions and bad. And I learned.
One of the things I did with Cassie that went well was something that I learned from a book. I think it was called, "How to speak so your kids will listen". It was popular when Cassie was still a toddler.
Anyways, what I did with Cassie was that when she was dealing with feelings of any kind, I would vocalize to her what I thought she was feeling. If she was happy, I'd say something like, "Oh you seem so happy! Are you happy?". If she was throwing a tantrum because she wanted something she couldn't have, I would repeat like a broken record: "Oh you are really upset because you want my soda. You really really want my soda but you're mad that you can't have it. Is that right?". The concept was to teach children HOW to vocalize their feelings. And while it didn't mean that I was going to cave in and give her the contraband soda, she knew that I understood what she wanted and how she felt. And she could learn to label a feeling with a word.
I do think it helped. Cassie was a wise old soul even in her baby and toddler years. She was a precocious early talker with a huge vocabulary. She would say things to me like, "Mom, I'm very upset with you right now", instead of just throwing herself to the ground and screaming. Sure she still threw herself down to the ground sometimes, but I really do feel it helped a lot! And as a teen today, she is very eloquent with words and feelings.

This is definitely something that I continue to do with Sasha. It worked very well with Cassie, and it seems to be doing well for Sasha as well. Sasha is very curious about feelings lately. She tells us when she is happy, sad, mad. She clearly tells us what she wants. She often asks us how we are feeling! Random strangers in the elevator get the grand inquisition into how they are feeling too! Hah she's like a two year old shrink.

There are plenty of other lessons I learned from my first child too. I taught Cassie how to read when she was four years old using the book, "Why Johnny Can't Read", an awesome book that uses phonics. I could hand her a newspaper and have her read any random article out loud, regardless of what it was about. Sure she didn't understand economics, but do any of us really? :P Anyways, I will definitely definitely teach reading again with Sasha.

Also, time really went by so quickly with Cassie. It really does feel like I was just sending her off to kindergarten the other day, and now she's in high school. It's crazy how fast it all goes, so enjoy every second! Take tons of pictures. Write all those stories down. The memories fade with time. It's hard for me to remember all those funny cute little things Cassie did when she was a kid, which is why I over-compensate and over-document this time with Sasha. Another lesson learned.

Swimming

As I previously posted, Sasha has been a serious water-bug lately. Two mornings ago, Sasha was watching a little tv and saw some puppet penguins swimming on Sesame Street. She started yelling, "Swimming! Swimming!" and danced around the living room like she was swimming. I asked her if she wanted to go swimming, and she said, "Yes please. I want swimming".
It reminded me that our park district has a really cool indoor water park, so we decided to take Sasha and the family swimming. As much as she's enjoyed water lately, we knew it would be a HUGE hit with her.
Sure enough, she had a blast! The water park was very crowded because the school kids are out for spring break. But despite the full crowd, it was fun.
Her dad took her down the water slides a few times, which she loved. She is a natural at floating on her back. In deeper water, she would naturally flip to her back and float. It cracked me up when she was floating on her back and flapping her arms like a birdy while chanting, "I'm FLYING! I'm FLYING!". Several times, she tried to get herself out of our arms because she was fully convinced she could swim by herself.
And she thought it was hilarious when her dad would submerge himself underwater and wave at her.
Sasha gets cold fast when she goes swimming, so I knew we probably wouldn't be there long. Last time we took her swimming, she got herself very very cold, uncomfortably so and shivered for such a long time that we worried. We were more prepared with extra towels to warm her up quicker this time. I was ready to leave at the first sign of any shivering. Once she shivered the tiniest bit, we teamed up to get her straight into some towels, warmed her up, dressed her in dry clothes, and left.

Fish in the tub

Slowly over time, Sasha became a water lover. Her baths were usually all about business. Wash up, play with a few toys, and she was done. She didn't like to get her face wet, nor her hair. Shampooing usually had to be done quick, and she usually threw a tantrum. Baths were tolerable, but a shower was completely unacceptable. She had a set of stackable cups, and usually played with those for a while, and maybe splashed a bit. If she splashed water in her face, she became upset and yelled for a washcloth.

But slowly the past few months, she's acclimated herself to water. I can't recall whether it was the shower first that she took to, or if it was laying down in the bath water. At first she'd timidly put her arms and legs in the shower stream (I use a removeable shower head so I can wash her hair and the tub easier). Every day, she got a little braver until one day she was able to stand herself completely under the stream of water, face and all.
She also started to lay herself down in the bath water, which was a complete no-no a few months ago. But she did it by herself, again slowly and a little more each day. Now she lays herself down in the water so that her ears are completely underwater. Then she enjoys the way the water makes everything sound funny. Every noise she hears underwater, she shouts at me, "WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?". Usually it's just dripping water, but sometimes I knock on the side of the tub to make a noise for her.
Now she is like a fish! She lays on her tummy and launches herself across the tub, chanting "I'm SWIMMING! I'm SWIMMING!". She can lay on her back with barely her nose and eyes sticking out of the water forever. She gets out of the tub when the water is cold.
I recently added some new fun to bathtime: bubble bath. Oh man, she loves those bubbles. She plays with bubbles with such glee, chanting "Oh I LOVE bubbles! I LOVE them so much! I'm so HAPPY!". She really says that and it cracks me up how she expresses herself.
I'm a bit torn on the bubbles. They make her so happy. But I get nervous about the chemicals in them. But that's for another post someday, as I've been working on avoiding some of the nasty chemicals in soaps and shampoos lately.
Anyways, that's my little fish!

Happy

Sasha is happy. She often tells us so.
Happy is a common word in her vocabulary lately!
For example, this morning, I tried to wake her up but she was just too sleepy. I picked her up and put her on the living room couch. I turned on her favorite show on tv. I made her favorite chocolate milk and offered it to her, and she sleepily accepted. She laid there, sipping her beloved chocolate milk through a straw, hugging the cup. And without opening her eyes, she murmured quietly, "I'm so happy".

I had to work tonight, so I took a nap before I had to leave. When Sasha's bedtime rolled around, my husband brought her to me so I could put her to sleep. He told me about the cute new thing she was doing tonight. She would sit down in front of my husband, face to face, and say, "soooooo...... Are you happy?". And since she's a toddler, she did this about a gazillion times but we laughed each time. She looked like a little psychologist, and the way she said "soooooo....." was amusing.
At random times throughout the day, she'll hug us and loudly exclaim, "I'm happy mama", or ask us, "are you happy?". And when she is with me, I always am :)

Zoo

1. Merry Go Round, 2. Merry Go Round, 3. So beloved, 4. Checking out the polar bears, 5. WHARRGARBL!, 6. WHARRGARBL!, 7. Baby Bird, 8. Little Gardener, 9. Bad Influence, 10. Pose, 11. Chillin' & Strollin', 12. Mom and daughter
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
We had an annual membership to the local zoo, which is about to expire. It's been a while since we took Sasha, so we figured we'd better get out there. We've definitely got our money's worth out of the membership, but we had not been to the zoo since last summer. I don't think Sasha can remember back that far so it was all new to her again.
We had fun with the carousels, the children's zoo, the petting zoo, but the highlight of the trip was definitely the polar bears. They were really active! There was a male and female adult that were put together for some possible mating. For the most part, it looked like the male was chasing the female around, and the female was very evasive. In another polar bear enclosure, a young bear, the age of perhaps the equivalent of a teenager, was very playful. The zoo keeper was hosing the area down to get rid of the poop, debris, and stuff. The young bear was chasing the stream of water from the hose around. It leaped in the pool and was going nuts chasing that water around. It was so fun to watch!
The other cool exhibit that we enjoyed was at the Children's zoo. There was a greenhouse, and a bunch of spray bottles full of water. The kids could grab the spray bottles and run around and squirt the plants to water them. This exhibit might have just said "SASHA" on it, because that is so up her alley. We have a water sprayer in our house, and she loves that thing. So running around and squirting plants, she could have done for hours. Good fun.

Two-and-a-half

Happy half-birthday Sasha! Today, she is two-and-a-half :)

The weather should be nice this weekend, so I think we'll go to the zoo soon!