that must be pretty confusing and obscure to read.
anna is just incredible. she is such a cute kid. she has suspended her efforts to walk, preferring to hang tight to the pulling up and scooting, but in lieu of that, she is very into communicating. i swear she is saying thank you--when she hands something to you, she says "deh doh" in the exact same inflection of "thank you" -- and it is only when there is an exchange. she still loves to coo at animals, and if anyone sings, or if she hears music, she starts singing along. but the best is when she has the phone or when someone is on the other side of a closed door. in that case, she either holds the phone up to her mouth or stands at the door and yells "AH! AH! AH!"
she loves loves loves the piano.
and she is very much into "putting." recently she started trying to put her puzzle pieces back into the puzzle board, and loves anything that fits together, or goes into a container. out. in. out. in. and on and on.
and now she has 4 teeth. oh, and she also likes to blow air gently through her lips--like she is blowing bubbles. i don't think carter can do this yet. it is really cute. if you blow the hair away from her face, she will do it back.
ava is finally experiencing success in school. that is, success as she defines it. until she meets her own standards (best defined as better than a certain kid), she gets discouraged (a euphemism) and resists trying to do the work. this reading thing has been quite an experience. ages ago, she got the idea of reading and was able to decipher simple words. but when it all did not suddenly fall into place magically, she bailed and flat out refused to do anything but the bare minimum. this happened with bike riding too. when it looked like she was actually going to have to go through a gradual learning process, and it would come with some failures and scraped knees, she would not get on her bike. it took a year before she was willing to try, and the day that she did try, she was suddenly so determined that she did it. she did the same thing with her piano songs. the day before a scheduled recital she finally sat down and figured out her songs--memorized them and voila. but incremental progress? no way. she will not accept that such a thing exists, let alone has any value.
but it is also hard for her because she is my guinea pig. my experience is her experience. i cannot offer her any wisdom, because i don't know how kids learn until she learns something. what is very interesting is that there is an educational philosophy that says kids really are not ready to learn academic things until they lose their baby teeth. until that point they are supposed to build a foundation for learning. this theory is not based in any neurological evidence, but curiously, ava seemed to have made a mental and emotional leap concomitantly with losing her first baby teeth. i would be curious to know what is occurring in their brains at this point--if there is any link.
she did pick up knitting rather quickly--thank goodness it was not me teaching her.
nevertheless, while her interest in learning has improved, she is exponentially more interested in her athletic accomplishments. and clearly always will be. like i said, if only there were a way to teach the elementary school curriculum via skating and gymnastics...then we would be golden.
