Today we were watching Wheel of Fortune over at my parents' house. Shaelyn had been running through the kitchen during one of the commercial breaks, but as soon as she heard the sound of the show coming back on, she ran toward the t.v. and stood in front of it holding her little hands together in a clasp. She held them that way and stood in front of the t.v. without moving a muscle until the puzzle was solved, and then proceeded to clap.
On the plane from SLC to Chicago, the air was so choppy and the plane had several stomach-turning bumps. Our landing was one of the wildest and scariest I've experienced so far, but Shaelyn was having a grand ol' time. There was a huge smile on her face the entire time, and when we landed, she clapped her hands and said "Yay!". I guess the girl's in for a lifetime love of rollercoasters!
2/13 (Wednesday):
One of Shaelyn's favorite games to play with me is peek-a-boo. She has initiated it herself several times by covering her face with clothes, a blanket, or hiding behind a door or wall. Each time, she peeks up at me and says "hi!". Tonight she figured out that she can hide her face with her hands - I LOVE IT!!!!!! She will cover up her eyes (or her nose or her cheeks or her ears, whatever), and then when she moves her hands, she expects to hear one of her favorite phrases: "peak-a-boo". Laughter always ensues.
2/14 (Thursday):
Shaelyn got a new book from her Aunt Eileen about safari animals. It's a peek-a-boo book, which she loves, but I decided to take it up a notch and make all the animal sounds of each animal once she lifted the flap and revealed it's whole face. This leaves her in an absolute fit of giggles. Her favorite: the elephant. And I've done it so many times, as of tonight, she can mimick me doing it.
2/16 (Saturday):
Today Nicolle and I drove together to a church function with both girls in the back seat. Shaelyn and Clara have never ridden together since both girls have been moved to forward-facing car seats, so it was a very fun adventure for them! They would play peek-a-boo with each other and giggle hysterically. The best part - when Nicolle and I looked behind us and saw them holding hands.
We purchased a new "princess couch" for Shaelyn so that she can sit and watch Wheel of Fortune instead of standing right in front of the t.v. Tonight she sat on the couch with Daddy and watched the NBA All-Star festivities while eating graham crackers. What a great way to spend a Saturday night!
2/18 (Monday):
Today it got up over 70 degrees (yipee!), so we went out in the backyard to play. It was Shaelyn's first time with free reign in the yard to go wherever she wanted, and she loved it. She especially loved standing at the fence and peaking through slats at all the oncoming cars.
She has also mastered pulling cords out of their sockets (yikes!), and LOVES to pull out our cell phone chargers and run around the house with them. Today she found the kitty and dangled the cell phone charger in front of her, and Maggie actually batted at it!
2/21 (Thursday):
Shaelyn has plenty of new books (to her at least) that are really intriguing her right now. She has an alphabet book that is oversized, so the whole book is practically the same size she is. She loves to tote it around and hand it to you to read to her. On the front and back pages, the alphabet is repeated many times with very colorful letters. Every time we read it, we sing the alphabet and point to each letter we're singing. Tonight, Michael and I were playing with her in her room, and she brought the book over to read. She opened to the front page and pointed at the letters and started sounding out vowel sounds in a real sing-songy way. I didn't know what she was doing, but Michael figured it out and said "She's trying to sing the alphabet". I've never heard her really try to sing a song with lyrics before. It was absolutely adorable!
2/23 (Saturday):
Shaelyn loves to stomp around. She has discovered two new favorite ways/places to stomp:
1) The upstairs bathroom floors - they echo real nicely and make stomping sound much cooler
2) Stomping on the downstairs hardwoods with her very heavy velcro sneakers - they make the stomp very LOUD. She will walk around normally on the carpet in those shoes, and as soon as she hits the wood, she stomps as deliberately as possible.
2/24 (Sunday):
While I was getting ready for church this morning, Shaelyn found our stash of tealight candles in the nightstand drawer. She was very meticulous about her play this morning - she took each candle one by one out of the drawer, and then brought it into the bathroom where I was and placed each one on the floor. She would make sure they were all touching before she went to get another one and repeat the process. I was watching her face and there was a very high level of concentration going on. After she had emptied the nightstand drawer and all candles were on the bathroom floor, she then took the back to the drawer one by one and very delicately placed them in the very back of the drawer, again making sure they were all touching before going to get the next candle off the floor. Needless to say, I took a long time to get ready for church!
Shaelyn LOVES to dance. And her favorite thing to dance to is not music recorded by a professional artist - it's "music" made up by me and Michael. Basically, anything with a beat gets her bouncing, so Michael and I will clap our hands and repeat things in rhythm. Tonight we were our own Sir Mix-a-Lot's and came up with a hilarious rap for her to dance to before bed. Lyrics included "Hey, don't you know you're tired?" and "Smack that tummy!" (she was dancing naked with just a diaper on) and "Don't you know you're just a baby?". Poor Shaelyn. We are the world's most ridiculous parents!
2/27 (Wednesday):
Michael was out of town and Shaelyn and I were SO BORED that evening. (Honestly, it's the first time I can say I've been bored being a stay-at-home-mom. Glad I can say that!) It was too cold to go run around the backyard, but Shaelyn had brought be her shoes and said "bye-bye", meaning, "let's get the heck out of here, Mom". So I packed her up in the car and decided to go to McDonald's for a chocolate milkshake treat. Once there, I remember that McDonald's has an indoor playground - heated! Shaelyn was too little for most things on the playground, but she had a blast running around and watching the other kids play (remember, she loves watching big kids - she thinks they're hilarious!!!). It was a great break from our boredom. Plus we got a chocolate milkshake out of it. And our 15-minute excursion turned into an hour-long outing!
Am I little enough to play, Mom?
2/28 (Thursday):
Shaelyn's new word (or phrase): "uh-oh!". It's so cute to hear her say it, and for the most part she says it at the appropriate times. This morning she threw her breakfast on the floor and then said "uh-oh!". Now who could get mad at her for throwing her food on the floor when she's so cute about it?
