What’s new with us?

This is just another update on what we are up to these days. 

Big Kid Bed

It has been a week since we set Maia up with her “Big Kid Bed” and things are going well with that.  She still gets joy from sleeping in it – she giggles a goofy bit every time she climbs into it.  She loves to put her stuffed animals and babies to bed in it after she wakes up.  In general, she feels really good about the new freedom.

Fears

There seems to be more and more lately that brings fear to Maia.  Whether it is dinosaurs (her toys or the big ones at the museum), “The Wild Things”, a particular “Frog and Toad” book, Vlad Vladikoff, or sitting on my shoulders, she seems to want to conquer these fears on her own schedule.  She will ask us to put these things away so she can’t see them but over time will ask to see them again.  She is doing a great job with this.  From what I understand, we have only seen the “tip of the iceberg” with this topic, and we should start to expect all sorts of imaginative fears in our near future.

Talking/Thinking

Her ability to talk is getting stronger and stronger.  She is able to make cognitive leaps that really impress me.  While reading “Miss Spider” today, I asked why Miss Spider was sad.  She correctly abstracted that she was sad because “No friends want to sit at her table”.  These types of sentences come out of her mouth daily.  Another sentence that is fresh in my mind from today: While playing in her kitchen, she told me “I will make a hamburger for you and you will eat it, Dada”. 

Reading

Maia’s attention span for reading is really expanding.  We tried reading “chapter books” to her a few weeks ago (“James and the Giant Peach” and “Stewart Little”) but she is not quite ready for that yet.  She was VERY interested in both of these books for the first 3 or 4 chapters, but quickly lost interest in both.  She is, however, capable of sitting through “early reader” books which have chapters but more pictures than “chapter books” but many more words/chapters than picture books.  These books include “Frog and Toad” and “Mouse Soup”.  There is one in particular that we read tonight that I am quite fond of.  “I Love You, Dude” is a pretty imaginative and complicated picture book with 12 chapters.  I think it is probably my favorite book to read to her thus far.  It takes over 30 minutes to get through it and she sat through the entire story with interest tonight.

Fascination with Pregnancy

Maia has met several pregnant ladies in the past week and the concept has really peaked her interest.  She loves to carry stuffed animals around the house in her belly (under her shirt) and often demands that we do it with her.  (Dads are not yet excluded from being pregnant in her world.)  She also loves to do this thing where she pretends that she is being born.  I really have no idea what this actually means to her, but she is adamant that “I’m being born! I’m being born!”