A Week in the Life of our Little Lamb...

I know I don't post on this blog as often as I would like but, as any of you with young children know, we're always busy with activities, playing, learning, etc. and when I have a moment to myself I find myself doing crazy things such as showering, eating, cleaning, and *gasp* even reading a book finally.  =)    Anyways, I thought I'd write a really quick post on what we typically do in a normal week, in case anyone was randomly interested. (Even if you're not interested, here it is...)


Mondays we typically lay low and focus on trying to make more sounds and start to speak, to have lots of mommy-LL play time, and climb up and down the stairs (we recently removed our baby gate completely so she LOVES having free reign of the entire house now) to explore.  We might watch a half hour of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cartoon in the morning, if mommy needs a chance to have a cup of coffee and muffin.  Also, I secretly love the little bit of TV time just b/c it's one of the few times my very busy toddler will allow me to snuggle her.  


Tuesdays we have Baby Storytime class at the libary, which she LOVES!  She runs right up to the teacher to "help her" by turning pages of the books and she giggles at the other babies, which cracks me up every time.  Then, we stay at the library after class and pick out some fun books and CD's.  Now that she's so mobile, she loves to run away from me and "help" to rearrange the books.  Don't worry though...she definitely is not one of the crazy kids in the library making noise and annoying the other patrons.  No lazy parenting here!  (At least not 99% of the time).   =)    We also have her Occupational Therapy visits on Tuesdays, though not every week.  They are, btw, going really well and I wouldn't be surprised if the OT recommends us scaling back even more or ending our visits completely at the end of the school year, because she is catching up so well.  


Wednesdays we go to our local ECFE class, which I am stoked about.  I kept calling them periodically throughout the school year to see if there were any openings and, finally, someone dropped out and I snatched up their spot.  She is so comfortable there, even though we've only been there 2 times, and basically ignores me the entire time.  We do art projects and water or sand-play.  There is a whole classroom of toys for her to explore - her favorite being the play kitchen set.  Then, we have circle time where we sing and read a quick book.  Then, the babies go play with the adult classroom helpers and the moms talk about a specific topic for a few minutes.  The REALLY fun part comes next - going across the hall to play in the gym.  LL climbs in and out and in and out of the little cars and climbs up the plastic playset to go down the slide.  The teachers were laughing at her last week b/c she would slowly walk to one of the doors, glance around, tiptoe out of the room, and then run as fast as she could down the hall to come back in the other door of the gym, over and over.  Anyways, it's a really fun time and I'm so glad we got in to the class.  


Thursdays, we periodically have Speech Therapy visits (just started them up last week) also through the Early Intervention program in our school district.  I wasn't sure if I should start her on this service b/c I know every child speaks at their own pace and I'm really not worried about her at this point.  However, the speech therapist was spoken of so highly from several people and it's a free (well, paid for in our taxes, technically) service that I figured we should try out.  Our first visit was GREAT and she gave me some wonderful tips on encouraging LL to want to communicate verbally with us.  LL will say "da da" variations and makes several babbling sounds, says "uh oh", and a few animal noises, but hasn't made any real progress verbally in the past few months, so that is why I thought a little help could be needed.  She signs for "more" and "please" now, so she is able to communicate her needs to us well for now, but I can't wait until she hits her "language explosion" that my friends with kids all tell me about.  


Fridays are typically errand-running days for us.  Nothing too exciting, but anything to get us out of the house on these frigid, winter days are much-appreciated by both toddler and mommy.  We also might visit an indoor playground, like we did this past Friday, to run out some energy.  


Can I just say that I am SO ready for warmer weather?  I realize I do live in MN, so I am not against winter.  However, I have about a million outdoor activities I can't wait to do with our now very active toddler.  Even to just have the option to take her on a stroller ride around the neighborhood would be wonderful.  I gaze longingly at the playground behind the library every week when leaving our storytime class.  Hopefully just another month and we can get out there.


OK, someone just woke up from their nap, so now's a good time to end this post.  I hope all of you are having a relaxing weekend (or whenever you're reading this) and we send you our love!