Dani has been trying to help me and Trent lately. She helps clean her room and load the dishwasher. She puts her toys away when asked. At times, she will even clean up the water she spilled without being asked.
Tuesday we went to the pediatrician for Dani's late 18 month appointment. When the doctor came in she handed Dani a book from the Reach Out and Read program and Dani looked at it with excitement and said "Clifford!". The book is "Clifford Barks". The doctor was surprised by this response and asked her what color Clifford is. Dani thought about it for a minute and replied "red". Dani does not know her colors yet, but she knows Clifford is "the big red dog", so it was an easy question. Obviously, the pediatrician was not worried about her development after a few minutes of visiting.
Dani may know her letters, but she does not know shapes yet (all circles are not called "circles", but are called 'O's). She is also learning her colors, but is still somewhat confused about color. We were reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Bill Martin Jr. and Dani was saying "brown bear!", so I asked her what color brown bear was. She responded quite quickly, "green". Everything else in that book is also green according to Dani.
Today as the sacrament was being passed Dani opened my scriptures and was telling me what colors she thought the scriptures were highlighted in. . . "green, purple, red". . . Then she proceeded to count starting at "13, 14, 15". She has been able to count to 13 for about a month now, but does not always use one to one correspondence. She will also occasionally forget a number or two, or decide that 4 needs to return later on in the sequence. Then she decided that her sacrament cup was a "cupcake".
Wednesday we went on a hike in the mountains. See other post. We will definitely go back some day.
Thursday it was my turn to lead our preschool. So we read Leaf Man and made our own leaf people and animals. We woke up around 5:45 so we could take Trent to work. After taking him to work we grabbed some leaves to play with in a small group. It was sprinkling and snowing as I collected the leaves and we had to towel dry some of them so it wasn't mush by the time it reached the preschool/play group. Dani was excited to hear that it was snowing because she wanted to make a snow man, but it didn't stick so that will have to wait until later. By the time we finally made it to the play group, Dani was exhausted and fussy. She did not want to leave me to see the other groups and she was not interested in making any leaf people. The activity went as well as could be expected with well over 20 kids present of varying age levels. Luckily the parents stay and help.
Friday we watched Curious George and ate popcorn. Dani enjoyed watching George play peekaboo. She talked about the monkey all and popcorn all night.
Yesterday I went to a "Super Saturday" activity put on by another ward's Relief Society. Our Ward was invited since our primaries meet together and we have lots of activities together. A week earlier I took Dani over to a home of someone who was organizing the activities to give her money for the craft activity I wanted to do. I told Dani that I was going to make a caterpillar puppet for the "Very Hungry Caterpillar". She was confused when we left her home that I didn't bring any caterpillars with me but I told her that I would make it later.
When I returned home, I asked her if she remembered why we went to the lady's house to give her money. She responded "pillar". Last night I finished gluing on the final pieces and decorating the butterfly. This is what we now have . . .
Dani absolutely LOVES this set and acting it out with the caterpillar eating through each of the foods. It will make it easier when she is able to put it on her own arm, but for now it's at least very entertaining on Mom's arm.
The person who designed the pattern for this puppet set is in my Ward, but she asked that we not use the pattern for profit. She has her own etsy page and sells these herself. Honestly, it's too much work for me to do this for profit, but it would be fun for a Christmas gift! The butterfly was not exactly patterned after hers. I designed the decorations on the butterfly's wings myself. I also made a few minor changes to the watermelon, strawberry, and salami.
I think it turned out quite cute. It has given me some ideas for Christmas presents.
Since it was freezing cold and snowing all day yesterday (thankfully still not sticking much), we went to the library to spend a little time outside of our condo. Dani brought home three Clifford books to read and I brought home a few for me. I love having a library close by.
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