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.

Character Voices

On Friday the 9th we were able to have a little 18 month old friend, Ella, visit. The whole day Dani talked about her saying "This my new friend, Ella". Dani had her doctor appointment in the morning, and so I had dropped Trent off at work in order to have the car. On the way to pick up Trent, I heard Dani using a low character voice in the back, and then switching to other character voices. After a while a realized she was telling Ella a story with at least three characters.

1. A Dinosaur who wanted a "valentime box" - The dinosaur had a low voice, like a man's.
2. The dinosaurs mother - She had a really sweet sounding voice.
3. A baby - The baby had a high pitched voice and didn't say much.

Ella found the voices quite funny and would laugh after every phrase, which luckily encouraged Dani to tell more.

The different voices all started back in January when I was taking Dani down the stairs. She was wearing her coat and realized she had pockets. She put her hands in her pockets for the first time and told me she had a parrot and motioned to her wiggling pocket. The parrot then began to speak in one of my favorite voices that she makes "hello, I a parrot". We went into the stairwell and Dani pointed out the exit sign to the parrot saying "There's the egzick (exit)" and then repeated the same phrase in her parrot voice. She asked the parrot if it knew what happened in a show she had recently watched and the parrot answered back asking "what happened?"

Anyway, this well developed little character voice has appeared many times since then. It often shows up as voices for other stuffed animals, and has even made appearance in her prayers a couple days ago. Daddy asked her who said the prayer, and Dani answered that she did, but then he asked what voice she used and she said "the parrot voice".

Here is a sample of her voices and story telling. You can't see it in the video, but it is the stuffed frog (parrot like voice) and the kitty (mommy like voice) who are talking to each other in the beginning. My prompts were about the story she told Ella to see if she would replicate the voices for the video.

Though the stories are quite random at the moment, you can see how stories that she knows seem to end up in her own stories and pretend play. The baby's "sound box" and the dinosaurs' "valentine box" are from her favorite letter books, written by Jane Belk Moncure, where the characters ("Little A", "Little B" etc) find things that begin with their letter sound and put them in their box. She is able to "read" most of these books since they are similar enough in pattern that many are easily memorized.

A couple days ago, Dani was telling us another story where the baby was born and grew into a dinosaur. I'm curious what she thinks her little brother will grow into.

Super Why

Dani still LOVES TV. If I would let her, she would have it on all day long, but I feel the need to ration TV as a reward, or for times I need to get other things done. I always thought it would be easy to limit, but I have not found that the case.

When she wakes up early and I am still exhausted and tell her I want a nap, she responds "I watch a little show while you take a nap!". Unfortunately, I have taken her up on this offer a couple times.

One of her favorite shows is "Super Why". As I was watching her integrate many of the story elements into her play yesterday, I wanted to write what she has learned from this show.

1. The first thing she learned that I was very grateful for, was that tantrums and excessive crying mean you need to go to bed and sleep. Thanks to the "Jack and the Beanstalk" episode, we often talked about how the giant was having a big tantrum, which meant he needed sleep. After she saw this episode, putting her to bed when she was fussy became much easier, because she realized she needed sleep.

2. About a month ago Netflix added another Super Why DVD to their instant queue, this one included Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the story Goldilocks makes a "big mess" and then needs to "clean up". Every time Dani makes a mess, she now apologizes "Mama, I sorry I made a big mess" and then says she needs to clean up like Goldilocks.

3. By December she knew all the typical consonant sounds from our own play. For at least a few months Super Why has been reinforcing the sounds she has learned because she will answer the questions they ask on the show like "what letter makes the /p/ sound".

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Though not as beneficial as the above points she has learned, she has also brought concepts of the story into her own life and play. Super Why's premise is that there are four storybook characters that have a problem in their real life and then they read a story to figure out how to solve their problem. The story often has a problem at the end that Super Why, the main character, changes a word or two in the story to help them solve.

4. About a month ago, Dani started responding to my concern that her hands are dirty, or her room is messy "Don't say that! Don't say that problem mama!" as if I ignored it, the problem would go away. Now when I say "I need to wipe your face" or something, she tries to negotiate by saying "don't tell me that story"

5. A couple days ago, I overheard her talking in her play. Her stuffed animal was crying and saying "I have to! It's in my story!" which is the typical plea for Super Why to change the story for a happy resolution at the end.

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That was all from only one show. It is not uncommon for Dani to tell me all about a show she has watched for the first time, and then add those details into her pretend play. I do not support letting kids watch TV in general, but it is hard to keep her away when I know I can have a break. I'm just very grateful to know that there are shows on TV that are safe, and educational, because she sure absorbs a lot more of them than I ever expected.

Dani & Reading

I've enjoyed listening to Dani "read" her books lately. She points to the words in the title as she says what she remembers the title to be, and pretends to read her books.

The first time she did this spontaneously was on the phone to Nana a few days ago. She picked up "A Frog in the Bog" and began to "read". We've only read this book 4 or 5 times since she got it from her Doctor almost 2 weeks ago.

As usual, she changed the title to "A Frog in the Log", but then she surprised me by coming close to the story as she "read"....

"A frog on a log, in the middle of the bog" (page turned)

"He spy a fly. Oh My" (page turned)

"another fly!"

Shortly after, Trent wanted to finish talking to Nana and as he took the phone back she yelled out. "I read you a story Nana!!!!"

Then yesterday, Dani was "reading" her Winnie the Pooh pop up book "The Trouble With Honey" when she changed the story to better fit her understanding of the pictures.

The picture on the first page shows Pooh covered in honey at rabbits house, after he has eaten "many, many pots of honey", according to the text. Instead of telling about how Pooh ate a lot, Dani was more concerned about the mess all over Pooh. So she read it somewhat like this.

Rabbits Voice: "Don't worry. I will help you wipe honey off your bahmin (bottom) and legs" (turns page)

The rest of the story she was more on the mark focusing on how Pooh needs help to get out of the hole he is stuck in. "Help! Robin Help!" as she thought Pooh said.

My favorite part of her reading lately has been the different character voices she uses, but that is going to wait for another post with video.

As a side note, yes the pictures were posed today while she was watching Sesame Street so I can write. So she looks a little distracted. The reason her outfit looks funny in the first pictures is because since conference time she has demanded to wear a "dirt" (skirt) every day so she can dance. So, every day she wears a skirt if her shirt is not long and flow-y enough for her to consider it a skirt.