Happy Birthday - 3 Years Old!

What a big week. At school Shara is transitioning to the preschool and today is her graduation - with ice cream & a pizza party! She could have had breakfast in preschool (Ms. Amanda's room), but she wasn't ready - we didn't know about it and it really isn't official until Monday, but other parents were having their kids eat over there. We decided to wait until Monday. She'll be in preschool all day anyway, except when they take her back over to 2's for the party.

When we were doing Shara's hair this morning, she asked where the edamame man was. She said the edamame man outside and it took me a few minutes and I realized she was talking about Pea Pod - the grocery delivery service. I had put in an order to be delivered last night and she kept wanting to say edamame. While we were doing hair she was playing with the leap frog phonics game that Grandpa & Nonie gave her. She matched the letters to spell cat and bat. It's really great - they show a tile with a picture of a cat and the letters below. She matches the letters from the letter tiles. When doing it with her I can tell her to search for a "c". Her letters are really coming along and so are her numbers. I'm assuming when she's in preschool full-time she'll be reading ahead of schedule. She also really likes numbers - more than letters at this point. She loves counting and arranging. She also gets the concept of addition. Pretty cool.

Last night we had her birthday dinner at Maguire's, at her request. It was fun - lots of chowder and pasta. Then they brought out her cake & ice cream with the candle and started singing. She didn't like that and later told us she just wanted mommy & daddy to sing. Not the man and the ladies. I had misunderstood her earlier and thought she wanted the staff to sing to her. I did feel bad but she wasn't broken up about it. We all enjoyed her cake - Alan stopped eating first, then Shara & I continued until she said, "mommy, stop eating my cake. It's my birthday." And she did finish almost every drop - even when it became ice cream soup!

I'm trying to think of other things that have happened and I can't really think of too much. Yesterday when I picked her up she was on the playground and wanted to take a bike ride before we left. She started riding around the concrete perimeter and there was a bigger boy riding another bike hot on her tail. He was actually bumping into her but she was totally unfazed. She wasn't going to move out of his way and just kept going and stopping at her own pace. It was really funny, if not a little rude. But I then realized that she wasn't going to have any trouble in preschool because she could really care less. She's happy to play by herself, nap for as long as she wants, eat what she wants, and she does play with other kids, but she's really her own person at this age. I'm sure we're all saying, "I hope it stays that way!"

Last Swim Class

The problem I'm having with updating the blog is knowing just what to put down. Shara's doing so much and saying such cute things that it's hard to remember all the little things, and that's what we're getting a lot of these days - little things.

On our way home from school she's been really good at telling us what happened during the day - what she had for lunch, the art projects she worked on, basically a conversation.
Restaurants are a big thing - I don't know if it's because she doesn't like my cooking, but she always is asking to go out to eat. The other night we all went to Fresh Catch where Spolleto used to be. She ate almost a whole bowl of clam chowder. That's all she wanted. I also started doing a new thing - mixing her vegetables with something she really likes, like a bit of broccoli on the fork with sausage, or shrimp. She's not bad about eating vegetables, but she'd much rather have something that's tastier to her, like cake or pasta.

Yesterday we went to Johnny's graduation party. It was fun. Hannah and Shara had fun running around and looked like they were playing follow the leader, but Hannah was the leader. I was wondering if it was Shara's way of feeling comfortable at the party. For the first 1/2 hour she wouldn't let me put her down. Then I basically said she needed to sit and eat and then if she wanted a chip, which she was asking for, she'd need to sit in her own chair. She did and then wanted to go on the stage where Hannah and the big kids were hanging out. She pretty much was parroting Hannah and I found it odd because Shara seems to be so independent and has her own ideas of what she wants to do, so I do believe it was a coping mechanism she used in a foreign environment.

She didn't have any naps and there were a couple times I thought she was going to fall over asleep. She did sleep on the way home but woke when Alan tried to put her into bed. Before dinner, since we ate lunch so late, we did laundry and watched me pack for my mini-conference (I'm at the airport now). Earlier in the week she said she wasn't going to cry when I went away, but she did, and so did I when they dropped me off today.

Yesterday was also her last swim class - another reason why she was so tired. She did really well. Swam more on her own. Alan had told me that he had a terrible dream friday night and couldn't get back to sleep. He dreamt that shara went in the water without her vest and was drowning. I had a hard time getting that out of my head during the lesson. But I tried not to show fear and she was so proud of herself and how she was swimming all by herself! There was a sub teacher and I think it was great that they got to do something different. Each week her teacher did exactly the same lesson, but yesterday she started learning how to grab onto the side of the pool and walk her hands down the side. Also started learning to pull herself out of the pool. These are important safety skills and I'm glad it was introduced. A lot of what's learned is for her and us. I do want her to be in the next round of classes - over the summer. I just hope that we are going to do something different. At least it's time in the water, and who knows when our pool will be ready and the weather is always a factor as well.

We did add some items to Shara's wish list for her birthday, so if you're having a hard time deciding, click on the link to her Amazon list. Alan and I are getting her the Fisher Price digital camera. She did say she'd like the mini Mr. Potato head set and said she "needed" the "mini pet shop" toys from Hasbro, but that's not good for her age and I told her when she's older we can put that on her list. She does love puzzles and Bubbe bought her a 24 piece puzzle that doesn't have a border, picture in back or anything. It's just like an adult puzzle, but the pieces are bigger and there are fewer. She needed some help of course, but she did great and really did do most by herself. We got her another one and she loves them. I'd have to say that's her favorite thing to do.

So next is getting ready for her party. She's really excited to have her friends over and share cake and play. We were invited to another party for a classmate on the same day, and they're having ponies and a moon walk. Alan spelled those as he was reading the invite - she probably would have chosen to go to Erin's party over her own if there was a moon walk!
But all is well and I'm sure Alan will have an interesting time being a single dad for a couple of days (he says a week but it's 2 full days and his parents are coming over today, so that doesn't count). And Wednesday is only the morning, so I don't think he'll be overwhelmed. The new thing to him is getting her and her breakfast ready in the morning and picking her up and fixing dinner. He's done baths, gotten her dressed, picked her up from school, and even dropped her off a couple of times, but I'm guessing if she's happy they'll be fine, and if she's miserable, it won't be so fine! Life is a series of events, and we can add this little trip to all of our lists.

Trip to the Zoo

This post is actually being done on 7/1/07, but realized I forgot to put any entry in for our trip to the Zoo. We went to the Roger Williams Zoo on the last day of our vacation week. We had a great time and it was fun to go during the week. The weather was great and we spent just the right amount of time there. We saw the elephants, giraffe - shara's favorite, zebra and all the other animals you'd expect. They did a neat thing with the penguins - they tagged them (bracelet around their wing) and put up a chart so you could match the bracelet to the chart and find out their names. We did this while sitting on the steps enjoying a refreshing apple snack. We had lunch with a nice man and his daughter who were there on a field trip with their school. Shara had a meltdown and he said don't worry about it, he has 3 kids and has been there many times.