Sunday, May 8, 2011

The little boss

Whew, Roxanne is getting to be a sassy kid. I keep reading about how 3-year-olds go through tough phases, and yeah. Don't get me wrong, she's still awesome, just a little more challenging. She's always had such strong opinions, but now she is almost impossible to deter on things because she can take matters into her own hands. She's extremely independent, and doesn't want you to do much for her. She wants to climb into the car, buckle herself into her carseat, pick out her own clothes, put on what she can figure out on her own (before dissolving into a fit when she can't totally succeed on her own...) and definitely get her shoes on by herself. Basically, anything that she is physically capable of doing by herself, she wants to do by herself. In some ways, it's definitely nice, but in others, it gets old. Like when you are in a hurry and you just want to buckle her in and not wait for her to fiddle with her whatever six toys she's brought into the car, or buckle her babydoll into Ben's carseat (if he's not in the car), etc. etc. before buckling herself. She's always had strong opinions about the radio in the car, and wants the volume up to her liking, but now she's starting to (try) and pick the station, too. She likes the station we often listen to, which is an indie rock/college radio type XM station, but she will sometimes ask for "Fifties on Five," which she asks for just like that. And some days she's very patient about listening to NPR with me in the mornings or evenings, but other times she'll demand "music please! I don't want to listen to the news." Fair enough...

She's getting back into playing with baby dolls, which had been thrown over for playing with tiny Hello Kitty statues and Squinkies and Calico Critters. She still loves the little things, but now she wants to feed her babies, and change their clothes, and talk about their diapers. I'm not sure if it was brought on by talk about Baby Bumblebee, but I think it's cute. We talk about the baby kind of a lot, just in terms of trying to talk about how much the baby is going to love Roxanne and want to play with her. She has plenty of experience through my job about how much babies cry and require attention, so I'm actually not all that worried about that aspect. I think she'll adjust to sharing me fairly well since she already does every day with a baby and another toddler, but I do worry sometimes about her jealousy with Justin. They have gotten so close now that he has nights during the week of just the two of them. I worry that fall semester especially will be rough. I'll have class two nights a week, and the semester starts on my due date. So Justin will be at home with a brand brand new baby and Roxanne by himself. On the upside, I'm basically only taking one class, and it's shorter, so even though it's two nights a week, I'll be done and home before 9, whereas I usually am not home until after 10 twice a week. I'm sure they'll figure it out, but I hope it won't be too rough on them both! I've been trying to do plenty of reading about helping toddlers transition to having a sibling, etc., and I'm hoping that since she'll be 3.5, she'll be able to handle it fairly maturely. At least not too violently...

In other Roxanne news, she's still obsessed with writing and painting and drawing. She is very into letters and spelling. She loves "Super Why" on PBS Kids, and will often pretend to be "Princess P" from the show. I've been trying to scale her back on TV that isn't educational in an outright way, and keep her mostly watching PBS shows. She seems totally fine with that. She always wants to talk about different letters and what words start with them. I make letter color sheets for her so she can practice tracing the letters, and she definitely likes to. I don't hawk over her and monitor what she's doing, and it's all very laid back. I'm nervous about teaching her to write because she's left-handed. I have been reading about lefty toddlers, and it sounds like you have to be careful not to try and teach them writing the same way you would a righty. Sounds silly, but looking at the research, it totally makes sense. I'm trying to find a good book/workbook to help educate me and Justin about how to help Roxanne as she's learning to write. I keep reading that if you force them into righty habits in writing, they will often hit a point in school where they lag behind in writing skills. For now, we're trying to encourage her to keep practicing writing and learning the sounds letters make, but not in a scary, or even school type way. I'm a firm believer in the concept that just because a toddler can read or write does not mean that they should. But I love it when she asks me "Does "B" start with "Baby Bumblebee?" She always phrases that backwards. It's so cute.

Sorry for no photos this time! I've been bad about taking any...

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