Allie's talking has also improved tremendously. She attempts to repeat pretty much everything, and although she usually doesn't get the whole word correct, she is getting the first part of the word right. Just a few of her favorite words to say (well...try to say) are: milk, bye bye, bottle, bubble, eye, mouth, baby, no, down, uh-oh, apple, banana, dada, book, bug, and mouse. And of course she tries to make animal sounds like "woof woof", "meow", "baaaa" (like a sheep....she really likes this one), "moo", etc. Many of the words that Allie tries to say all sound alike. For example, bye bye, baby, bubble, bottle, and bug are all "bu bu". I must say that in the last day or so she has pretty much mastered "bye". She says it while she waves to people and it's really cute....no doubt she's gonna have a Southern accent!
A few other fun things that Allie has learned over the past couple of weeks include: climbing on/off her rocking horse by herself, giving her baby dolls milk/water from her cup and trying to feed them her breakfast, singing/rocking her baby dolls to sleep, giving kisses with an exagerated "mwa" sound (she kisses everything including her books, the table, her high chair, the remote control, the couch, my belly, etc.), clapping when people clap on TV, saying "DaDa, DaDa" everytime my phone rings or I get a text message, putting her toy phone up to her ear and pretending to talk, and lots of other fun things that I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment!
Allie is still doing great in school. She's been doing so well that for the next 3 weeks she is gonna go to school 2 days/week rather than just one day/week. I hope that for the remainder of the summer I am able to take her 2 days/week, but it all just depends on if they have any openings in her classroom for the extra day. She's so tired when I pick her up. The picture below is from Allie falling asleep in the car just minutes after picking her up from school.....so cute! When we get home at 1pm she usually eats a quick snack and plays for a couple of minutes before going down for her nap at 1:30pm and sleeping for 1 1/2- 2 1/2 hours. Oh, and she loves wearing her sunglasses now, thus the sunglasses in the picture.
We know that when Allie goes to school this fall, she's gonna have some growing up to do. This summer she has been in what's called the PDO (Parents Day Out) classroom with babies ranging in age from 3-18 months. When she starts school this fall, she will be in the 2K classroom. This is more of a school-like setting with a set curriculum where they will be learning about a new subject each week and they will receive instruction in foreign languages (ex. Allie will receive some instruction in Japanese each Wednesday). The 2K class is for babies turning 2 years old during the school year, and since Allie will turn 2 a week before school is out next spring, she qualifies for the 2K class. However, she will be the youngest in the class. The babies in the 2K class must be able to walk and talk, drink from a regular cup, wear pull-ups instead of diapers, and carry their own backpack. The walking and talking are in process (still have to work on drinking from a regular cup and the pull-ups), but we've all been worried about Allie being able to carry her own backpack this fall. Well, I put her to the test the other day and she passed! Allie is such a big girl now...she CAN walk and carry her own backpack! We did receive some good news the other day about her 2K class. Apparently they have enough kids in the 2K class to create two 2K classes. One will be called 2K-A and will be made up of the "younger" two-year olds, and the other class will be 2K-B and will be the "older" two-year olds. So, Allie is being placed in the 2K-A class so that she will be with other babies close to her age. Actually, some of the babies from her summer PDO class will be in 2K-A with her this fall. We are very excited that she enjoys school and can't wait to see what she learns this year!
More exciting adventures of Allie to follow.....
Nikki
