Drawing Games

I am having trouble uploading the video of Dani and our drawing games, but at least I can post a still picture of her latest drawing for "Mommy and Daddy and Nana and Grandma". She decided to draw Jack and the Beanstalk. So she drew a straight line on the right (the beanstalk). Then she drew a circle for Jack, eyes, nose (scribble), a mouth (horizontal line) and hair. Then she drew the giant's face, eyes (two dots both on the right of his face) nose (the dot on the left of his face) and smile. Then she thought she was being funny by drawing hair all over his face and on his chin. Afterwards she wanted to make pictures for everyone and she started labeling all the people she was going to draw a picture for.

Also on this picture, the scribbled out mass on the bottom left, was originally a cat (circle with dots for eyes, scribbled ears, a dot for a nose, a smile and whiskers that extend upwards and almost touch the giant. She mentioned that the long whiskers made the cat look like a ghost. We were playing our question mark game, which we came up with this week. Dani (or I) will draw a picture, I will label it, then she will scribble over the picture and I will add a question mark to my label (that's why you see "Cat?" written above this item). Dani thought it was hysterical when I would say "cat?" in a question tone as if saying "is this a cat?" or "where is the cat?" or "you call that a cat?".

New Sayings

When Daddy says "I love you more", Dani responds thinking she is topping him by saying emphatically "I love you RIGHT NOW!".

The last few weeks Dani has been using the word "maybe" in an interesting way. We think that she started using it to try and ask for things in a nicer way, such as "may I", but she has extended it to other phrases that just sound funny.



"Maybe I want juice"
"Maybe you will help me with my puzzle"
and my favorite,
"Maybe I love you"


Dani is showing off her purple tongue from eating cherries.

Lately I've been working with Dani on reading small words every day and we call this time her reading lessons (or as she calls it "Reading Blessin's"). This week she started to compliment me saying that I was a good teacher.

Then today Dani tried to use this compliment to get what she wanted. When I asked her to finish the puzzle she had taken apart, she asked me to help her, and then asked me to "teach" her and then said "because you a good teacher Mommy!". She's learning quickly what to say to get her way.

Videos for Jess

I figured out my video issues. I'm just not able to see them in the preview until I have posted them. Anyway, here are the videos that I think Jess would love best.

The first video is of Dani and her cousins dancing to the Laurie Berkner Band (or as Dani calls the band to the best of my interpretation "locally banjo"). She gets bumped in the end and I have to stop the video, but it just goes to show how sensitive she is. Every little bump right now requires a kiss from Mom.

The second video is Dani drawing the picture of Jack and the Beanstalk. I posted this story with a still picture because of my issues uploading videos.

First Joke?

Today at dinner, Dani came up with her first real joke. She just randomly asked:

"Why do Pirates say 'Ar!'?"

I told her I didn't know. I wondered why she was asking and bringing it up. She then responded, "Because they don't know the words"

I thought it was quite clever that she mixed a joke from one of her favorite books ("Rhymes and Riddles, Gags and Giggles") with a cartoon she saw yesterday (Backyardigans, "Pirate Treasure") to come up with a similar, but appropriate joke.

She's been trying to figure out knock-knock jokes for a couple months now, and even though she knows how to respond, her attempts at retelling the joke, or creating her own have been funny mostly because of how nonsensical they are, such as . . .

Knock-knock
who's there?

Dr. Pizza

Dr. Pizza who?
Dr. Pizza surprised by a banana! (followed by hysterical laughing, which you can't help but join)

Here are Dani's "Noculars". Notice there are no holes through them for her eyes.

Sickness

A few weeks ago when I went to get my prescriptions filled, I told Dani that we were going to pick up my medicines she responded in a sweet, concerned tone "you sick?". I tried to explain that some medicines are to keep you from getting sick, but I thought it was sweet that she was worried about me. She has been somewhat fascinated by the idea of being sick lately and what exactly that means.

Monday Dani saw an episode of Curious George where he got sick and then dreamed of going into his own mouth, then into his throat and then fought the germs. Unfortunately, I was out of the room when most of this episode was on and so I mostly know what happened from what I heard from the other room, and what she has described to me. Dani was fascinated by this particular episode and has been talking about it all week. It even gave us an opportunity to talk about where her throat is and she likes to point out everyone who has a throat, and that "you're throat in your neck", and how her food and drink goes down her throat when she eats.

Then on Tuesday Dani felt warm while I was putting her down for a nap. I took her temperature and she had a low grade fever, and other than seeming a little uncomfortable, she had no other symptoms. Eventually, I convinced her to let me give her medicine (Tylenol) to help her feel better. I admit, I did have to bribe her with a smoothie and make sure it was ready to give her as soon as her medicine was down, but she did fairly well. She mentioned while drinking the smoothie that "the smoovie fight the germs", it took me a little while to convince her that it was actually the medicine that was making her feel better, but she has reiterated several times since then that the "medicine fights the germs". She was very happy that night after the second (but last) dose for the day when I told her that she was all done with medicine. She was even more happy when she didn't have to take any medicine the next day because her fever was down and she was "not sick anymore".

Then last night as Trent was talking with Dani at bedtime, she mentioned her concerns for Mommy. She told him that Mommy is going to have to go to the hospital, that means Mommy is sick. She mentioned that she thought the baby in my tummy was making me sick because I am going to go to the hospital to have the baby. She was very concerned. There is so much to learn and it can be so overwhelming for such a little mind. I'm glad she's able to communicate the connections she is making so that hopefully we can ease the concerns as they come.

Character Drama

Today while we were eating dinner (Dani did "not want to eat dinner"), Dani was playing the keyboard with her Cinderella doll. Dani would sing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and then in a Cinderella voice she would sing about the Prince, a witch and a Princess. After a few minutes we heard the two voices arguing with each other. Dani and Cinderella were angrily saying, "That's MY PANIO!" (Pany-oh = piano), "NO, That's MY PANIO!". . . They argued back and forth for a while and then Dani thought of her trump statement "It's MY PANIO, because you're a doll!" and then she grabbed Cinderella and dragged her screaming (luckily her dolls scream quietly) to a box where she was told to stay.

After convincing Dani to eat some of her dinner in exchange for a little juice, she returned to playing on the keyboard without Cinderella because Cinderella was still being punished on the box. However, Dani's hands turned into two different characters which quickly created drama with each other. One hand was a dog and the other a spider. The dog was fiercely afraid of the spider and the spider (hand) kept grabbing the dog (arm) while the dog (hand) clung to the chair for help.

The drama she creates with her characters happens daily, I just often forget them before I get a chance to write them down.

On another note, since Dani's regular sparkle dance shoes got wet, she wanted to wear her new dancing shoes from Nana and and she talked about how they were the "perfect present". Originally she was terrified of wearing these shoes, but today they became one of her favorites.