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Friday, April 18, 2014

Birthday preparations: Part 2

Millie and Dada are having a date day so I can work on blue doll. It's going better than I expected but still a lot of work to do. The inner head is finished and there's a little person trying to get in here saying "Mama? Blue?"



Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Birthday preparations

I'm having so much fun working on plans for Millie's birthday. Today we decided on a menu. She likes most food so I wasn't sure how to pick one thing for her special day, but at dinner I realized that Mexican night elicits the most "MmmHMM"s and "Num num!"s from this girl. She also loves sandwiches that can be taken apart and eaten piece by piece. For her cake she knows exactly what she wants. We'll probably do the cake after lunch. So here's our birthday plan with lots of her favorite things combined:
Breakfast: cinnamon buns and fruit
Lunch: tomato, mozerella, and pesto sandwiches on ciabatta bread with balsamic vinegar; chips
Dinner: "Yellow Tacos"- hard corn shells, mixed beans with taco spices, avocado/red onion/endive mix, sour cream + shredded cheese
Cake: purple cake (maybe dyed with blueberries?) with chocolate frosting and blue M&Ms

Some other birthday preparations coming together:
blue dress; birthday ring decorations; felt birthday crown (just needs elastic on the back)
For the crown I followed a tutorial on one of my favorite Waldorf-inspired family blogs. The bee is in reference to her nickname "Millie Bea". The purple lilacs were inspired by the last picture I took before we went into labor- beautiful blooming lilac branches from our front yard. The blue background is of course for her favorite color, and the yellow M for her second favorite (also one of her first words). The rainbow represents two things-  the magic that our joyful Spring time baby brings into our lives, and also the memory of our hospital stay for her birth because it was raining when we went in and bright sunshine when we came out with the tiny bunny baby.

The birthday crown tutorial can be found here: http://frontierdreams.blogspot.com/2009/05/wool-felt-birthday-crown-tutorial.html?m=1

Just 10 days left to finish Millie's birthday gift! 

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Independence

There is a general theme that runs through our parenting style around here. We try to treat Millie with respect and meet her developmental needs at every stage. A big part of that is setting up areas of the house where she can be independent and manage her own wants and needs. There is a lovely Montessori saying, from the child's perspective, that I often repeat in my head when thinking about arranging Millie's spaces:
"Help me to do it myself"
I really want to document her young toddler spaces around the house before they change again as she grows. I want to remember the little peg rack where she hangs her quilted yellow coat, her favorite board books next to the potty, the tiny glasses and bowls in the kitchen.
This is on my mind partly because of her birthday coming up, but also because we are seeing a progression in her independence. She has always been very capable (as all children are), but recently she has begun to string these acts together into some serious big girl behavior. Brady and I have been patting ourselves on the back a bit lately, talking about how fulfilling it is to see our parenting decisions pay off.
This afternoon Millie and I spent a good 1.5 hours in the park exploring the woods with our friends. When we got home I helped Millie take her coat and shoes off. Then she used the potty entirely by herself (this is very exciting and has been happening for a couple of weeks now) while I got my stuff off. I told her I had to make dinner, so could she please go play until it was ready. Usually she plays in the kitchen on the floor, mixing up pretend things and such, but not today. Without saying a word, she got herself a snack from the pantry and set up shop at her art table! I almost died it was so cute. She got out her watercolors (I filled the water jar for her), then her colored pencils. After a while she took out the chalk too. The whole time munching away on a breakfast bar. I was starting to feel a little left out, but eventually she called me in with her standard "Mama! Down, down, down!", pointing at the floor for me to sit and watch her. So I did :)
This second photo is of her describing how she made the picture hanging on the wall.
Arranging moss and acorns from our walk

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Yard work

We had a great day today with Dada. A trip to the Home Depot, lunch at Panera, and lots of yard work. Ours friends came over to help us take a rotting tree down. We finished cleaning up the whole yard and began preparing for the planting season. Millie Bea got a new bag of sand for her sandbox and we're working on carving out a little nature playscape for her. Next step is getting the grass going so small people can have picnics and all sorts of fun. A very productive day!
Currants, blackberries, and strawberries all starting to show new growth for this year. I transplanted the peonies into this bed as their previous home is now part of the play space.
Finally feeling like spring!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Birthday talk

Millie loves talking about birthday plans (who doesn't?). She learned the game of bringing sand cakes to people and singing "Happy Birthday" from the little girl that we babysit. A couple of days ago she tried it out by herself for the first time, bringing me a pan full of sand and singing "Buppity, buppity... ba da ba.." etc, a little to the tune of Happy Birthday and finishing off with strong notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Yesterday we were so excited that it was cousin Sotir's birthday, she sang the song all day and sometimes included "TWO!" at the end. At tubby time we left him a phone message of the song. Then we may have called a couple of other people and left similar messages...

This morning we read Sot's birthday blog post and Millie was floored when she saw that he had her favorite things on his cake: BLUE M&Ms!! I thought the grin might freeze to her face if we looked at the picture any longer. Up until then she had been requesting a purple cake, but that has now been amended.

At bedtime tonight I was laying down with her and we were talking about various things. She reminded me that she wants a "baby, blue" for her birthday and I assured her that a doll with a blue dress is in the works. I asked her "Who had a birthday cake with blue m&ms on it?" Her eyes lit up and she put her hand on her chest (which means "me/Millie"). I said "Hmm I thought it was cousin Sotir". She gave a big smile and again indicated that it was in fact herself. I guess I was mistaken. Then she rolled over onto her back and started making a mental list of what she needs on her cake: "Bup (pink)... no. Blul (brown)... no. Blue?! Purple?! Em-a-nuhs! (m&ms)". She repeated this a few times, so I think she's pretty serious about it.

It's hard to believe the cousin-twins are 2 this month! Here's Millie with the Tochka boys last May: