Christmas in July

We had a little Christmas at our house today. Ab has been stuck in the house for a couple of days now and we have both had enough TV, books and pretend play. So after readning the nteenth million book today I got out a Gingerbread Kit that I bought in January.

This kit was a lot of fun to do because it was EASY and came with everything we needed. We will definitely get another one to do in December.

Swimming!!

Abigail is officially swimming!! She can finally swim with her head in the water. This is very exciting news. I have been trying to convince(translate bribe) her into doing this all summer. How did I finally convince her to swim "like a big girl"? I told her she could not go into the deep end of our community pool which has a slide unless she could swim across our pool with her head in the water. Amazingly minutes later she was able too :)

An attempt at videotaping

I attempted to video tape Abigail's reading tonight. Trying to get her to perform on video always involves a lot of negotiating and ultimately me handing over a lot of sugar. Even after we have settled on a price she does not always keep her part of the deal. But she sure does look and act cute trying.

The book Ab is reading is a library book. It is a series of books published by Wonder Books. Abigail seems to really like them. I think it is because it involves large font, one simple sentence per page and predictable text. Unfortunately the entire series is out of print.

Enjoying the Silence

As I type this Abigail is silently sleeping in her big girl bed. THis has been such a long time coming! I can finally trust that she will not stop breathing in the middle of the night (something she has done regularly for months). The silence is strangely disconcerting after months of hearing her snore. But I will enjoy it while it lasts.

In other news ABigail has reached the age of whine. She whines constantly and it is so anoying. I feel horrible saying that about my own daughter and I know she is recovering from surgery and has been sick for a LONG time but I have reached the point where I don't want to listen to it anymore. So tonight I finally decided to use some of Abigail's brilliance against her.

Abigails favorite movie is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She has watched it so many times that she can tell you the entire story, all the characters and all of their flaws. She is constantly critiquing others (at inapropriate times)and relating them to this movie. She saw an obese woman on the bus the other day and told me she was like Agustus and ate too much chocolate...which was not fun on the bus and we later had a conversation on personal topics we can and cannot talk about in public...anyway I digress.

This evening I was listening to her whine about something. She wanted something AND WANTED IT NOW. So I turned to her and told her that she was acting like Veruca Salt from the movie. Immediately she stopped whining. She did not cry but sat quietly for a few minutes. The next words out her mouth were polite and in a tone that did not drive my batty. She even apologized. I am always amazed at how easy it is to use logic with this child. I have no expectations that this will cary over till tomorrow but I am still glad that it was so successful tonight!

To think I pay for private school :)

Ab: We are playing chamchamling. Pick a bear
Me: I pick the yellow one.
Ab: (throwing a bear on the floor)Nope the purple one. You lose
Me: What are we playing?
Ab: (in a tone that implies I am an IDIOT) GAM-BUL-ING. Pick another bear
Me: (LAughing) Where do you learn these things
Ab: I learned it in school.

Just being a kid...

Today was a wonderful day! We spent the day enjoying the weather, the pool and our family. Abigail is like a new child since she has had her tonsils out (and the scabs came out) I thought she was a happy smiley inquisitive child before but now she is 100x that. She wants to see, smell, touch and KNOW everything in her world around her. It is a wonder to see her curiosity and imagination blossom! This morning she pretended that an egg from her kitchen set was a baby gosling getting ready to crack! She was such a good mama Goose(?) and took care of that egg very carefully. Another new thing for her just today is that she can dress and undress herself! This is such a big thing for us because while she has been potty trained forever she had trouble pulling up her pants...no more. She proved to us today that she can button snap and tug to get dressed and look reasonably neat :)

This afternoon we managed to talk grandma into going swimming with us. This was a big treat as Grandma does not like the ladder that leads to the pool. We all had a good time playing together and Abigail especially enjoyed showing off for her.

I will add pictures in the morning!

We are home!!

We are home! Three weeks is a long time to be away from home but we have had a wonderful time traveling! Abigail had such a great time playing with old friends (and I did too). We arrived home on Tuesday night only to get up Wendnesday morning to head to the hospital so Ab could have her tonsils removed. The surgery went great and she is feeling 1000x better already! She must have felt a lot of pain before because she is saying that the surgery does not hurt so bad.

Sesame was great this year! Abigail is finally tall enough to do most of the rides and really liked the characters! She was so amazed by seeing "ballerina" zoe that she would not even pose for a picture. This was the best I could get.



The rides were great. Abigail says her favorite ride was the rollar coaster (my least favorite ride) and then the Rubber Ducky Ride. She also loved the flying fishes. The one dry "ride" sesame had when I was little was called Big Birds Nest. It consists of 3 stories of nets that you can climb all the way to the top. I HATED that place. The rope was rough and it was hard to climb. Of course it was Abigail's FAVORITE thing to do there. She climbed all the way to the top.







If given the choice between Sesame and DC I think Abigail actually enjoyed (in the long run)DC better. She LOVED the Nature and Science (Air and Space) museums. Outer Space is her new obsession. She and I will soon know anything and everything you can know about the planets (at least what comes in the childrens section of the library)

After DC we headed back to Charlotte for some downtime with our friends. Abigail's friend Meredith lives there and it is amazing to see these two's relationship. They are best friends even though they only see each other once every couple of months. It will be fun to see how it evolves once they get good at talking on the phone.

Will add more later. AB is awake!