Happy Valentine's Day!

We skipped open gym today and I had full intentions of helping the kids make Valentine’s instead.  Somehow, even without our outing to Gymboree, we seemed to run out of time and were still working on them when Bill arrived to pick up Abby in the afternoon!  It was nice to take a break from activities and do our own thing today though.

After Abby went home, Shawn and I delivered his Valentine and some cupcakes to Raj's office.  We barely caught them as they were cleaning up after their last patient, but it's always fun to visit.  Shawn has named the antique dental chair, "Shawn's Chair" and immediately climbs into it whenever we're there.  Ms. Jeanne even showed him how to push the pedals in the back to make it hum.  (It doesn't actually move any more, but it makes sounds like it's going to!)  Shawn also makes sure that the plaster molds and other teeth that are on display in Raj's office are arranged to his liking, even if sometimes that means they fall on the floor.  Occasionally, he'll stick his fingers inside one of the models and say, “Ouch!”  He also likes to brush the teeth on the giant display mouth, though sometimes it bites him, too. 

I realized after the fact that I didn't catch Shawn making any Valentines before he decided he'd had enough of craft time.  Ooops!  Raj did take this picture a few days ago, so I thought it would be fun to share it today:

(This is now saved as the background on Raj's phone.  Shawn knows it's there and gets very excited when he sees it.  It's pretty funny to watch.)

Dinner and Dancing for Mom and Dad, Playtime at Abby's House for Shawn

Tonight is a Formal Dinner and Dance for the Indian Dental Association of Illinois, for which Raj is the Secretary. He had to go early to help set up, so I took Shawn over to Abby’s house to play for the evening. He was very excited to go to her house. I’m not even sure he noticed when I left! I did fail to tell Shelley and Bill ahead of time that Raj and I were going to an Indian event, so when I arrived at their door dressed in a lehenga, they were more than a bit surprised! I forgot that they’ve never seen me dressed like that before. After chatting with them for a few minutes, I headed to the banquet hall to meet Raj.

   

Later, Shelley brought Shawn back to our house when Abby went to bed. She even got Shawn to sleep! It was nice to be able to have him sleep in his own bed and not have to try to transfer him later. She sent me a photos of the evening at their house:

Gymboree: Our Home Away from Home?

When we got into the car to go to music, Abby surprised me by climbing all the way into her car seat this morning!  Normally, she gets in and plays with the buckles on her seat until I get Shawn strapped in and come around to her side.  Not this time!  She jumped right in her chair without even thinking about it.  Once it had sunk in that she had actually done it, she had a huge smile on her face.  It wasn’t a one-time stroke of luck either – each time we got in the car today, she climbed right into her chair as if she’d been doing it for months.  What a big girl! 

For the past few weeks, Fridays have been extremely busy, perhaps a little too much for one day.  We’d start with music, have a break for lunch and maybe naps, and then go back to Gymboree for Family Gym (and Open Gym depending on the nap situation).  However, today is our last day in this particular music class at Gymboree.  Next week we’re moving music to Wednesdays so we can spread things out a bit.  It should help Fridays seem a little less hectic!

Still, for today, I think we were at Gymboree as much as some of the teachers were!  We had Music, Family Gym, Open Gym, and this evening was the Sweetheart party in honor of Valentine’s Day.  (Abby wasn’t feeling up to joining us at the party this evening, I think she had had enough!)  Shawn and I did a lot of driving back and forth, but we had lots of fun.  Raj met us there after work and Shawn’s eyes absolutely lit up when he saw Dadda walk through the door.  We made a Valentine with his painted hands, ate red velvet cupcakes, “mailed” pretend Valentine’s cards, and, of course, a variety of games and activities.  The Halloween and Christmas parties were a lot of fun, but this one was led by two teachers that Shawn didn’t know.  I think it inhibited him a little.  The teachers were very nice, but it seemed to me that they may have even been trying a little too hard!  There were a few activities Shawn didn’t want to participate in and simply watched the other kids instead.  With the action packed day we’ve had, though, a little people-watching offered some well-deserved downtime!

Oma sent me a web link with someone’s home video of Chicago’s blizzard and asked if we had experienced what was shown in the movie.  The time lapse shows 17 hours of snow in 41 seconds.  Pretty cool to watch, especially if you didn’t have to actually live it!  Anyway, I'd say that's pretty much what we saw from our windows, too.  I took pictures, though didn't have the forethought to do any time-lapse type stuff.  I wish I had done something like that with our grill in the back yard!  Even with street lights on, it got a little hard to see after the sun went down, though that's when the really impressive winds picked up and the streets completely disappeared - even the dips of the curbs vanished.  The land really took on a barren, other-world appearance.  Very eerie. 

I think all of the streets are back to normal now, though parking lots are about half their normal sizes because of the snow mounds that take up the parking spaces.  There were a few special dump trucks that had heaters in them to melt the snow that the plows would load into their backs, but they were really just used on major roads and at the airports where they needed the snow gone quickly and didn't have anywhere to push it out of the way.  We've gotten a few more snow flurries since "the big one," but just enough to make people grumble and get nervous about getting any more - not really anything we would've gotten excited about before. 

Gotta love Chicago weather!

Not Just Books at This Library!

I joined a group called Northwest Suburban Families as a way to find fun things to do with kids and families.  Today, NWSF sponsored a playgroup at the Elk Grove Village Public Library.  The host was a mom, who was originally from Germany, and her two boys.  Being the only ones from the NWSF that showed up because of the cold weather, we talked and got to know each other until she had to pick her older son up from preschool.  It was a shame that we were the only ones there, but the Elk Grove library has an amazing youth “wing”.  In addition to the enormous room dedicated to children’s books, there’s a large corner that serves as a play room.  There was a puppet theater with a whole cast of animal puppets, a wooden castle and house, tables with magnetic toys built into the table tops and magnet wands attached to the underside, a small kitchen complete with dishes and pots and an entire pantry of play food, shelves of dinosaurs and trucks, a table full of Legos… I’m probably leaving things out, but there was such a selection, it’s hard to remember it all!  Abby and Shawn had lots of fun playing in the pretend kitchen.  Shawn didn’t even notice the dinosaurs or trucks until we were there for about an hour.  Abby met another little girl, who was extremely bossy – to kids and adults.  But, Abby played with her very nicely for a little while before she lost interest and rejoined Shawn.  We’ll definitely be going back to see what else the library has to offer little ones.

(And, I'll take pictures next time!)

Intro to German... and Monkeys

Shawn woke at 7:00!!  Luckily, he entertained himself in his crib with some toys and music playing while I got ready for the day.  Then, we were ready when Abby came over at 7:30.

Today was our first day of German class at Language Stars.  We got four free trial classes through a special promotional offer.  I’ve been really excited about starting, but our first class was snowed out last week! 

We met our teacher, Nina, in the front classroom.  There’s only one other girl in the class, three year old Rosemary, who usually has the class  by herself!  (What a great teacher : student ratio!)  Unfortunately, she and her mom showed up 15 minutes late.  Normally, Diego would start Spanish class and if someone’s late, they just join in.  Nina explained that this family is always 15-20 minutes late.  Since they are normally the only ones in the class, it doesn’t affect anyone else and Nina waits for them.  She had told them that we would be joining for a few weeks and to please be on time, but I guess they forgot.  This meant that class was more like 9:30-10:30, rather than 9:10-10:10.  Not a big deal on most days, but today we had plans after class.  Arg.  Oh, well.  Anyway, Shawn and Abby took advantage of the extra time to play with the box of toys and Nina and I got to get to know a little about each other.  Once the others arrived and we got started, German class was a lot of fun.  We opened with the nursery rhyme:

Alle Meine Entchen / All My Ducklings

Alle meine Entchen / All my ducklings

schwimmen auf dem See, / Swim in the lake,

schwimmen auf dem See, / Swim in the lake,

Köpfchen in das Wasser, / Head under water,

Schwänzchen in die Höh! / Tail up high!

This was a blast from the past because, although I didn’t remember all of the words, I vividly remember singing this song as a little girl.  The tune was certainly familiar and I caught on to most of the words pretty quickly, though the enlarged poster on the wall with the lyrics was still a helpful guide.  As we sang, the kids put a bunch of rubber ducks into a bin of water so they could “swim in the lake.”  Nina even pointed out a rubber duck that had its “head under water, tail up high!” 

I think all of the Parent and Tot classes have the same curriculum topics each week, regardless of the language.  As it turns out, the activities are similar too, though the teachers present them in different ways.  So, today we learned about colors, just as we had in Spanish.  We even did the same activity with the pictures of an elephant that we did in Spanish last week with Diego’s sub.  Abby knew right away what to do with the colored scarfs and the pictures of the strangely colored elephants. 

Ein Elefant in lila / A Purple Elephant

Ein Elefant in lila, / A purple elephant,

In lila, in lila, / Purple, purple,

Ein Elefant in lila, / A purple elephant,

Hast du noch nie gesehen, / You’ve never seen one,

Und ich auch nicht / And neither have I.

Fortunately, German class had snack time just like Abby and Shawn were accustomed.  And, as luck would have it, there were even goldfish.  That immediately got Shawn’s attention and he decided that his hunger for goldfish outweighed his shyness of the strangers in the class.  It was the only time throughout the session that he spoke, even though he was still following along and participating quietly.

After the snacks were cleaned up, we did the same project of making fruit loop necklaces as we had done in Spanish before.  This time there was a plastic string to use as the necklace instead of yarn, which was much easier to thread through the fruit loops (at least, those that weren’t eaten first!), but it was very hard to keep tied once the necklace was done. 

It was interesting to hear the tunes of some of the same songs that we’ve learned in Spanish, but with lyrics in German.  My mainly mono-linguistic tongue and brain got mixed up more than a few times.  I wouldn’t be surprised if, in addition to what I’ve learned in Spanish class, a long lost word from my high school French classes or even a tentative word from teaching myself Hindi got jumbled into phrases I tried to mutter today! 

After German class was over, we quickly jumped into the car and headed to an outing sponsored by Mother & More.  During our car ride to Little Monkey Bizness in Wheaton, we listened to quiet, instrumental music.  The linguistic part of my brain was tired and needed a break! 

Little Monkey Bizness was a lot of fun.  We had such a busy and exciting morning that we didn’t stay for very long because both kids were overdue for a nap.  In fact, at one point I found Abby trying to lay down to get some shut-eye in some of the playground equipment!  If that’s not a sign of a child who needs a nap, I don’t know what is!  But, we did get an hour of good playtime in and I got lots of pictures of Shawn and Abby being very independent and exploring the equipment.

Abby arrived at 7:30 this morning, so I was sure Shawn would get up early when he heard her playing downstairs.  Not so - Shawn didn’t wake until 8:30!  Getting extra sleep must have been more important than playing this time, though he’d never admit it aloud.

In Spanish class, we practiced naming colors.  Diego had a creative project for us, rather than just a coloring worksheet.  He squirted red and yellow paint into a ziplock bag for each student.  Then they got to mix the colors and watch them blend into orange.  It was a lot of fun.  Still, they loved squishing it and feeling the paint ooze around inside.  With all of the abuse they went through, I was just relieved that the bags stayed sealed! 

In the afternoon, we played with magnetic letters, some fabric activity books, and some counting books, too.  Two good friends playing so well together.

During naptime, I could hear Abby through the closed doorway.  She was saying, “No baby, no baby, no baby…” over and over.  All of a sudden, “Thump!” Baby got tossed from the pack & play!  When I went in to get her after naptime was over, sure enough, her baby doll was on the floor.  But that wasn’t my only surprise.  Abby had taken off her socks, pony tail, and her shirt!  That must have been one crazy dream!

The Not So Traumatic Trauma

When Shawn woke up this morning, I just couldn’t resist snapping a few pictures of his glamorous new look.  I’m sure he’ll hate me for it later, but it was worth it!

After breakfast, we were playing with some toys in the living room before going to Gymboree.  Abby slipped and must have bumped her lip on the toy she was holding because she cut either her gum or the underside of her lip.  (It was hard to tell exactly where it was.)  It bled for a little while, but after having dealt with a similar injury on Shawn when he was less than a year old, I held some paper towels on it and gave a sippy cup to her to suck on.  It didn’t take long for it to stop.  We wiped away the tears and, before I knew it, she was antsy to get back to playing with Shawn again.  I let Bill know about her accident, but when he heard her giggling with Shawn in the background, he was pretty confident that it was nothing serious and she could stay the rest of the afternoon as usual.  We tried to keep things low key for a while to give Abby’s mouth a chance to heal.  Luckily, the cut didn’t reopen the rest of the day, she could even eat with no problems.  Phew! 

We went to Open Gym at Gymboree for a little while, but we got there late and with the excitement of this morning, we decided to leave early for nap time.  When they woke up, we went to the basement to play.  (I thought we needed a break from playing in the living room this afternoon!)  The pictures almost make it look like they’re tired and laying down, but believe me, they were WIDE awake and very energetic!  I could barely keep the kids in focus as they rolled and danced in the playhouse.  Obviously, the pain and suffering of this morning’s trauma has past!

There was lots of good sharing today.  Here, Abby's sharing some goldfish with Shawn after lunch.