Sandy had a friend over this afternoon and we decided to make a cake. The girls had so much fun helping. Sandy’s friend is stirring the dry ingredients, Sandy is stirring the wet ingredients, and Abby is stirring a bowl of just plain water (and tasting it).
I should catch up and post pictures from the last month or two since I posted – and hopefully, I’ll get back to do that – but I had to write some of the funny things that happened today before I forget.
As Sandy’s friend was leaving, I’d just combined both bowls and came back into the kitchen to find Sandy chewing something. I asked her if she’d eaten from the bowl (we have a firm rule that if she puts her hands in the bowl or tastes anything while she is helping me cook that’s it, she’s done helping). She said she hadn’t. I was pretty sure she had. So, not thinking of the years of therapy this might cause, I said, “Good thing you didn’t eat that because it had raw eggs and if you eat raw eggs you can get salmonella and die.” She didn’t say anything until Bill got home and then we had an evening of tears with Sandy sure she was dying. I spent the night trying to do damage control and explain that I really exaggerated, most people don’t actually die from salmonella, but they can get really sick. And Bill and Sandy negotiating who would go with her if she had to go to the hospital.
Earlier today, I was downloading pictures for something for church and Sandy saw this picture of President Monson:
Sandy: That’s President Monson! Why is he wearing a purple tie?
Me: I don’t know, maybe he likes purple.
Sandy: Can we call him and ask him if he likes purple?
Me: I don’t know his phone number. Do you?
Sandy: No, but let’s go to his house and ask him for his phone number.
Me: I don’t know where he lives.
Sandy: Daddy will know. When he comes home I will ask him.
She recognizes pictures of President Monson and President Uchtdorf - and says their names really well. She knows who President Eyring is, but for some reason she has a lot of trouble with his name. She always gets the “Ring” party, but then with strange things thrown in. One of my favorites from today was President Ringcicle.
Not to leave Abby out of the stories… Abby has started biting. So far, she hasn’t actually bit anyone’s skin (keeping my fingers crossed!!), but she has started biting people’s clothes. I’ve been trying to get her to stop, by saying, “We don’t bite people, we bite apples.” and offering her an apple. So now, she’ll walk up, bite my shirt and say, “apple! apple!” So have I conditioned her to bite to get an apple? Maybe I need to rethink my approach. I hope this phase goes quickly. I’m also really trying to get her to stop hitting. The funny thing is, with Sandy it was so effective to just leave whenever Sandy hit or bit. She hated leaving and it worked pretty well. Abby seems to hit when she wants to leave. Today we went to story time at the library with the slide. The girls were playing great and going down the slide and getting along well with the other kids, until all of a sudden Abby started hitting. I told her no and redirected her twice, then the third time decided it was time for us to leave. So I picked her up and hauled the kids out to the car. Abby seemed really happy. She fell asleep on the way home. So, maybe we just need to leave at the first sign of hitting because it’s her signal that she is done.
Abby is talking up a storm! Every day she says so many new words. I am constantly amazed. Also, in the last couple of weeks, she started saying colors. And, she’s right most of the time. She’s pointing out pink, blue, purple, black, orange (which can be anything from yellow to red), yellow (which is often green), and occasionally green. I guess she just picked it up as I’ve worked with Sandy. She can also point out the letter S (the letter Sandy and I find the most often).
But the absolute best part of my day was watching Anne of Green Gables with the girls. Sandy and I read a young reader version of the book. It was her first chapter book. It took us quite awhile to read it a chapter at a time. It was so much fun to share one of my favorite childhood books with her. It was also fun to watch the movie and see her connect with what we had read.
