I guess I have a blog: December 2009

More plans

"My plan is to get thrown in jail...

...No, no, that's a bad plan."

Post-Christmas collapse

Day after Christmas

Daisy was so delighted at the visit from Cousin Rache and Cousin Hannie

Hannie and Daisy had fun at Healdsburg's fantastic new playground; Daisy tried to keep up with Hannie, which was excellent motor skills practice for my wee 'un (who tends to need work in this area)

When my mother ran into two of her friends in town, the girls proudly announced, "We are cousins!" and gave each other a hug

The Planner

Daisy has been making up all kinds of games lately. One of her games is to page through my yearly planner and say "My plan is...." on every page. I have a video of this and it's pretty funny, so I think I'll post it. On the first day of the game, the plans were really crazy, like to "get thrown in jail" and "get thrown in a garbage can." I really don't know where she got those. But today, her plans were to "eat cookies in the sky, eat cupcakes on the moon, and eat strawberries on the sun." Then she reversed the locations so that cupcakes were consumed on the sun and strawberries were consumed on the moon, "so they wouldn't be parted." After every page, she turns to me and says, "Is that a good plan?" And at the end she announced, "Those are all the plans I have. I don't have any more."

Now she is flipping through the planner and telling a story. Her stories are very wacky. Very. I can't follow it, but it features the following: "The temple came crashing down," something about Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, and several mentions of "mere mortals," "breakable fingers," and the question, "How much do you weigh?"

And now back to our regularly scheduled sweet, darling holiday posts

Christmas at Gommy and Gompy's house

First, this... I need to show you the look on Daisy's face when she opened her Bert doll. She really couldn't believe Santa had come through for her.

Daisy's face after eating the enormous candy cane Santa left in her stocking

Daisy dancing in Gommy's kitchen with Jamie

Daisy said the F word

I still have more Christmas photos to post. But I thought I'd break up the long string of sweet, innocent posts by telling you that DAISY SAID THE F WORD as clear as a bell this evening, and she used it perfectly in context, too. She said, and I quote, "Where is my toothbrush? F*ing crap!" It was like a scene from The Exorcist. When we asked her where she learned to say this, she pointed at Mark... and I am sure she learned it from him, too. I do not say that. Not sayin' I'm perfect, but that's not one of my expressions. I'll bet he said it while driving. I just tried to explain to Daisy about naughty words that you cannot ever say in public... dear God. Please don't let her say that at preschool or in front of another child or said child's parents.

Christmas morning at our house

Daisy was happy. Santa remembered to bring her a Bert doll. That was the only thing she asked for.

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve at Barbara and Andy Chiari's house (Mark's aunt and uncle). There is always delicious food and a lot of very kind company. The Chiaris are fabulous hosts. As for my pictures...I'm afraid I'm guilty of forgetting to take pictures of grownups. And I'm afraid I was also guilty of photographing the toddler girls more than anyone else. Woops! I'll be more balanced next time.

Daisy getting ready to go in to the party (I had to show off the cute green bows I put in her pigtails)

Daisy and the adorable Anya

Daisy and Anya pretending to explore a jungle and encounter various wild animals

Daisy and Kiki getting thrown in the air by their daddies

Daisy and Anya having fun with paper crowns

Andy and Ronan, his newborn grandson

Anna and Daisy's Cousin James

Way behind on photos

Here are some from a wonderful evening we had with our friends John, Rachel, and Ellie, who live in Union City. They made a delicious stew and Hobbit Cakes (Rachel invention) for us and then we went out in the cold and did a quick tour of a neighborhood of Victorian houses that do an amazing job of Christmas decorating every year. After that we did the Niles Canyon train of lights--something we've wanted to do with Daisy ever since she's been old enough to appreciate it. John and Rachel made us all thermoses of hot chocolate and brought snacks for the train. What kind friends! Daisy especially loved the open-air car of the train. She never got tired of sitting out in the cold watching the world rush by. (Oh, almost forgot: Santa and Mrs. Claus also came by and gave out candy canes at the end of the train trip, and Mrs. Claus commented disapprovingly on my Bah Humbug Christmas hat, which I had forgotten I was wearing.)

Daisy's new favorites

Daisy is fascinated by Biblical stories and now by Greek mythology, which makes perfect sense to me. I remember Greek myths really taking hold of my imagination when I was little (though I don't think I was quite as young as Daisy). This afternoon Daisy told me that for Christmas, she would like a picture of Icarus's wings melting. I told her I could show her the painting of Icarus's little legs in the water in the famous Breughel painting, but I'm not sure I know of a painting of his wings melting... but I'll try to find one.

She also ordered Mark to leave her room this morning because she wanted to read her Bible alone. Which she did, in her glider. Interesting child!

Haha

As I reported earlier, Daisy has become fascinated by a children's Bible that she borrowed from our friend Robyn's apartment. Today she asked me to pretend I was Samson and she pretended to be David. Here is how it went.

David: What did you do today, Samson?

Samson: I washed my long hair and told Delilah never to cut it off, never never! What did you do today, David?

David: I went to ballet class.

Samson: Uhhh...no, David. Didn't you see your "friend" Goliath today?

David: I have a friend named Henry.

Samson: No, you see, you're David. We're pretending, remember? You tell me what David did today, not what Daisy did. Samson and David didn't go to ballet class.

David: Samson can't go to ballet class. He doesn't have any tights.

Yeeeeahh. This whole pretending to be characters thing is Daisy's idea, but she doesn't quite get it yet.

A couple Daisy lines

1. Last night Daisy had her first accident since we stopped putting her in pullups at night. Although she wet the bed a little, the impressive thing is that she had stopped the pee from coming out and after waking up, finished the rest of it in the potty. While I was changing her sheet I heard her call out from the potty, "Excuse me, Mom! There is a problem." When I went in the bathroom she told me, "I am beginning to feel that I am hungry." Aside from the fact that she was asking to eat at 4 AM, I was extremely impressed by her sentence structure!

2. Just now I was telling Daisy how much I love her and she stated, "You would not want to give me up and get another child." I assured her I would not. I wonder where she even got that idea?

Oh, and just a random addition: Daisy is now using the expression "No way" on a regular basis.

Daisy singing along with Dada's guitar

They are singing "All the Colors of Winter." Daisy is pretty quiet (though I could hear her voice distinctly a few times in this clip), but you have to understand, at their dress rehearsal, she didn't move her lips ONCE. So this was huuuuuuuge progress. (And it should also be noted that none of the three-year-olds were singing very much at the rehearsal; apparently it's the norm for the singalong to be carried by the older kids, the four- and five-year-olds. This experience was quite a big deal for three-year-olds, and I think you can see it in their big google eyes!)

Daisy sings!

Okay...so this is Daisy at her school's winter celebration. Pardon the horrible camera-work. I was proud that she sang, since she had been mute at the rehearsal, but the funniest thing about this video is what she is doing with the bell in her hand. Look carefully. Every other child is holding the green string so the bell can ring out. My darling girl is holding the bell in her hand and ringing the green string. At least she has decent rhythm, though.

Daisy and Dada

Winter Celebration

Daisy's preschool had their winter celebration today, which began with a singalong upstairs in the church (the school itself is downstairs). The kids were taught songs in many different languages, reflecting the backgrounds of their teachers: English, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Hebrew. Mark accompanied them on guitar for the first song, "All the Colors of Winter." I will post some video when I get a chance, though I warn you the quality is not great. I had to shove my camera between two people's heads and the focus wasn't too good.

Now, the kids had rehearsed for the singalong on Thursday, and I got to watch because Mark rehearsed with them. Daisy's lips did not move ONE SINGLE TIME during the whole rehearsal. Not once, and she had a glazed look in her eye the entire time. I spoke to her about it in the evening, and she swore to me that she was, indeed, going to sing at the actual "celebation." I have to say I didn't believe her, in part because the look on her face during rehearsal made me think she didn't know the words. So, imagine my surprise this morning when Daisy sang the songs! Most of them, anyway. And I could actually hear her little voice a good portion of the time, too! I was such a proud, puffed-up mama. Most of the three-year-olds were not singing; the bulk of the singing was being done by the four- and five-year-olds, with some help from the teacher. But my girl sang!

Then my puffed-up pride was brought down to earth when Gommy pointed out that Daisy was the only child in the entire group who was holding her bell by the bell, rather than the string, so that when the kids were called upon to ring out their bells at certain moments in some of the songs... well, you can imagine how muffled the sound would be if you were holding the bell, rather than the attached string.

There was a lovely brunch afterward and Daisy took great delight in handing out her little gifts to her teachers and giving them a holiday hug. It was all very heartwarming.

The brunch following the singalong

Chanukah

Daisy's first menorah

Nutcracker!

Just let it be said... a three-year-old can enjoy the Nutcracker ballet. I kept hearing Daisy was too young, and I was starting to worry--but then again, I also knew Daisy has a long attention span when she's interested in something and that she knows the Nutcracker inside and out. We have last year's SF Ballet production of it on videotape, she watches it all the time, and she knows the plot and music better than I do. In fact, she corrects me sometimes when I make a mistake. So I knew those factors were in our favor. And it went great today! We had orchestra seats, toward the back but in the middle--we had a good view. Daize was completely rapt through the first act, sitting on a booster pillow they gave out. She hid her head on my shoulder during the part where Fritz breaks the nutcracker. Months ago we had talked about how she could do that if she needed to, but I was surprised she remembered. They gave out free cookies and juice during intermission, and then we watched the second act. Daisy was most interested in her favorite dances--the Arabian dance, the Cossacks, the Polichinelles, and the dragon dance--but she was completely good the whole time, even when a less favored dance was on. Turns out it's good we chose the 2:00 matinee, despite the fact that it meant skipping her nap (or our attempt to give her a nap) that day--that's the family-geared performance and there were a lot of kids there, including kids Daisy's age and younger. They had a lot of cute stuff going on that was just for kids. Side note: she is sleeping right now with her reindeer doll (they gave them out at the door of the ballet) and her nutcracker. She is so sweet. Here are some pics.

I brought her fancy party dress to school and changed her in the Bunny Room. We also brought her nutcracker so he could watch the show with us.