Today was a heavy travel day, and my attention was pulled in million directions with my husband being under the weather, a lost phone in the airport (I’d like to attribute this to preggo brain, but it’s probably just me – sigh), and saying goodbye to family after a long visit. However, I was able to capture a few moments of observation.
And I’d love to know…What have your kids been drawn to this week?
- Tossing bottles at the town dump. My in-laws live in a town with an incredible recycling program, and everyone in the town finds themselves, at some point, at the dump. All the local politicians, including Ted Kennedy, have been spotted campaigning there — a far cry from our curbside pick-up. Anyhow, I picked up on my daughter’s ongoing interest in throwing balls, bottles, apples, etc. and thought she’d enjoy throwing all of our empty water bottles into a huge wire bin of them. 40 bottles later…
- Baking with grandma. Play-baking, that is. They made everything from pancakes to apple-vanilla pie to maple syrup cookies. She really loves play-acting, and cooking has been a huge interest. There’s also an element of organizing and sorting involved (filling bowls and cupcake holders, measuring, etc.), which is an ongoing theme this week.
- Riding the suitcase. Grabbing on to my suitcase as I pulled it through the airport…just for fun. She’s an adventure-seeker, and will try just about anything.
- Making up lyrics to familiar songs. For example, “Down by the station, early in the morning…” becomes “Down by the airport, late in the evening….” and the iterations move into “Down by the park…” “Down by the swimming pool…” etc. I think she has fun inventing songs and pulling her own reality into music. She likes singing, and is otherwise disinterested in music…a future rapper, maybe?
- Pretending to be a baby. We’re expecting “baby sister” in about six weeks, and for the past couple months N has been saying things to us like, “Mommy, pick up the baby. Feed me milk.” She also likes to crawl, cry like a baby (in a funny fake “eh, eh” kind of way), and ask us to feed her. Today she asked me to feed her all of her lunch, and specified that her avocado should be “mashed up” (and this is coming from a kid who can also drink from a regular cup and otherwise wants to do everything by herself!). We picked up a play mat for her baby sister, and she negotiated that she would get to use it until baby sister is born. Makes me think I should pull out all of the baby stuff ASAP to let her get a good run in before it all becomes someone else’s.
I love the photo of Nola riding the suitcase. I imagined her surprising you by hopping on from behind. As if you need any more weight to carry around beside the suitcase and the new baby! Lori
And you’re so right…the first time I helped her figure out how to hop on, and then after that she would jump on at will. It was actually a great help, because the other alternative was “Mommy, pick me up!”