I made a super special Christmas gift for Alexa this year. I worked on it for weeks, hoping it would come out perfect! I think she did and Alexa seems to lover her as well!
On the Tuesday after Christmas, we took advantage of the fact that all our favorite friends and their mommy’s were out of school for the holiday break and joined them for an afternoon of gymnastics and lunch.
Alexa and I rang in the New Year quietly at home…
Before traveling to NJ for Alexa’s big flower girl role in her Aunt Chrissy’s wedding. (see previous post)
Ptah had surgery on his shoulder on January 4th. Alexa has been by his side assuring a smooth recovery…
January 5, 2010
our back deck
While we were in NJ, Vermont got its first snowstorm of the 09/10 winter season…24-30 inches!
icicles, January 10, 2010
The start of the New Year brought the start of some new activities for Alexa as well. I decided to enroll Alexa in Beginner Ballet at the local YMCA, despite the suggested age range being 3-5 years old. When I called to register her, I had boasted about Alexa’s advanced understanding of group activities and her abilities to follow directions and participate equally with the other children. She was most certainly the youngest and smallest one in the class. I found it stressful when I was told parents leave the room. Alexa made a beeline for me, tears falling. It was difficult to encourage her to stay as it was a room full of strangers after all. I did manage to sneak out and for the next 20 minutes, Alexa vacillated between participating, in her own special way, and running to the door to escape to the safety of her mommy. At one point I heard her say, “I no like ballet,” from inside the dance studio. When the instructor brought out the ballet bar (looks like this)
to practice, Alexa promptly began hanging like this…
a move she mastered in gymnastics class! Needless to say, not what the others in the class were expecting! For the last 10 minutes parents were invited in to observe what the children had learned. It was then that Alexa appeared proud of what she had learned and eager to participate in the final activity with the group, emerging from under a cheese cloth type parachute and dance around the circle of dancers mimicking a butterfly. Alexa crawled under and came out excitedly, but was a bit shy about dancing this week. We’ll be back this week and hopefully, as the environment, the instructors and the others children grow more familiar with her; Alexa will grow more comfortable in the class.
January 7, 2010
Saturday, Alexa and I began a parent/toddler swim class at a local fitness center. Mostly infants, bringing back memories of when Alexa and I began swimming together at the YMCA two winters back.
January 9, 2008
There was one little girl and her mom, Eliza and Shelley, whom I thought looked familiar. Shelley and I began to chat and it turns out that Eliza will be three on March 26th. It was fun to meet someone with a toddler exactly the same age as Alexa! Alexa’s favorite part of the class was discovering a pair of goggles and swim wings! She really seems to be gaining confidence in her swimming abilities.
January 9, 2010
Yesterday Alexa confirmed what I had suspected for the past three weeks. At the mall with Minna and I, Alexa pointed to the large GAP sign and said, “It’s my name.” I asked her to go point to the letter in her name and sure enough she went directly to the letter A. Today as we placed alphabet stickers into her sticker book, I said each letter out loud as Alexa stuck them to the page. When I said “D,” Alexa said, “Like Dog.” And when I told her the “M” was for “Minna” she said, “and Mommy.”
Alexa has also begun speaking Spanish! Thanks to several episodes of Go, Diego, Go! She often says, “Ayudame.” In English this means, “Help me.” She also developed wonderful manners often telling me “No thank you, Mommy.” Unfortunately, it always seems to be when I am making suggestions for things to eat. Some days she can be quite picky!
There are so many other things that I find amazing and hysterical, yet all too quickly I forget or become too distracted to document. It makes me sad that my memory cannot retain all of this, all of her! Time seems to go by so quickly. As Alexa says more and more lately, “I getting big. I be a big girl and I do everything Mommy do.” This morning she told me she would drive us to the store and I could sit in her seat! Before I know it, she really will be driving!
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