I’ve got a few things to say…
That’s dramatic isn’t it? But what I mean is that, as hoped, I am over the mountain that I was climbing in month 28 and I’ve got some fun things to tell you this month. (or actually this last six weeks – I have started this post sooo many times)
First of all, our kid is a nut. I mean this most positively, but she is flat out crazy. Many, many times over the last few months, Conor has turned to me and said “It’s really such a shame that she has no personality”.
She has hit the stage where clothes are a bother to her. She will whip off her shirt and run over to whomever and yell “I’m a redneck baby!”. We called her that the first time and it has stuck. Sometimes it’s just that she doesn’t feel like wearing a shirt. Sometimes I think she is irritated by what we chose to put her in. I was OK with it until her teacher told me that she had to redress her four times that day.
She is really starting to enjoy school. I think she’s liked it for a while, but she is now asking to go to school on non-school days, which is great, considering the hysterics that started off her school career. I will say that I feel like ‘that parent’ occasionally though.
For three weeks in a row, the teacher would come up to me and tell me something crazy that Savannah did. I’m sure that she has these conversations with the other parents, but I DO wonder. The first week was the timeout week when she kept running away. The second week, she told me that she now has to assign someone to watch her lunch when she leaves the room as Savannah tends to scavenge off her plate (This is not limited to just school either. She is a very ‘grass is greener’ eater. Whatever you have is obviously superior to what she’s eating.) The third week she said “Does Savannah try to take off her shirt at home? Ummm….yeah. See above about redressing four times.
The phrase of the last two months has been ” I don’t like ‘X’ anymore”. It’s very dramatic and is usually accompanied by a sigh or some very fake crying. Savannah is a bit of a drama queen. I am hopeful that it’s just age, but she can go from zero to full on temper tantrum in 1/2 a second. She is generally a good kid, but is really testing boundaries right now. Sometimes, she’ll just flat out ignore me. There’s been a bit of running away when we’re out in public and that can be scary (for Mama).
She is also a master negotiator. ‘Three books and two songs and then one more book’. ‘I would like 5,6,7 jelly beans’.
When we won’t let her take something (her pig, the coffee table, a newspaper, a plate – whatever) with her (in the car, to her crib), she will say “I will grab two pieces of it then”. She then pretends to grab two pieces of whatever and will then come over and ‘hand’ them to me. I will then be ordered to ‘put it in your pocket’, which I do. The trick is, that she will come up later (a minute later, a week later) and ask for the two pieces back.
She is amazing at puzzles. We bought her this awesome, giant Goodnight Moon puzzle at the Children’s Museum (thanks Gaga!) and she can basically put it together herself. It’s incredible.
Physical skill is improving rapidly. She is still a bit of a spaz, but she is running and climbing with a lot less fear lately. She’ll tackle almost any playground. Still loves the swings.
Singing is still a large part of her life. She enjoys holding on to the jumprope (used as a microphone of course) and looking at her reflection in the oven or a window. It’s like she’s working on her stage presence and it makes me laugh.
Savannah told me my age was ‘Fifty-four-one’ the other day. For reference, the Gagas are 6. I’m not sure what to think about that.
Her favorite color is still brown.
I think the thing that exhausts me the most right now is the constant talking and questioning. I know it’s good, but sometimes my brain is just tired and doesn’t want to talk about what an owl eats or what Olivia is doing right now. It’s also the asking of the same question five times in a row, when I have given her a perfectly good answer the first time.
Savannah has become very interested in gardening. She and Dad water the flowers almost very night.
She is also fascinated with Spanish right now. I have a few Spanish books lying around and I enjoy reading them to her even if she doesn’t really understand them (It’s kind of funny because kid’s books are about my level for Spanish comprehension). The side effect of this is that she now wants to know how to say all sorts of things in Spanish. We have busted out the Spanish dictionary quite a lot lately. We’re all building our vocabulary.
We know that she’s a bright little kid that needs a lot of stimulation and at an age that comes with it’s own set of challenges, but I find myself proud of her more than frustrated by her (most days). It’s hard not to love someone that demands ‘Two kisses’ at night and a ‘big, squeezy hug for Mama’.