Listen to the Rain

Laila is four years old! Happy birthday Laila!

This year, sashagee decided to have a smaller party this year, with just family. Unfortunately, almost no one could make it--her brother and my sister had to work and her parents were out of town on vacation, so it was just my parents that came. Laila didn't care at all, though, since she'd been talking for days about wanting to go spend time with papa and nana at their house and she was overjoyed at an entire day of attention from them. While I worked (at home, since my boss had offered that I could work from home on her birthday), Laila and papa and nana disappeared into Laila's room and read books, listened to stories on her Yoto (a gift from her grandma and grandpa), and drove cars around on her roadscape rug. When dinnertime came around we asked Laila what she wanted and she said tacos, so the entire family went on a short walk to sashagee's favorite local Mexican place, placed our orders, and walked back and ate. Shortly afterwards, papa and nana had to go home, leaving Laila with more Cars cars to drive around her rug, books, and some other presents.

Laila really loved her butterfly decor:


In more general updates, I already wrote about how we're worried about Laila's speech and we're going to get her evaluated, but she's been doing better in other areas. Today sashagee heard noise and woke up to find Laila had gotten up and gone to the bathroom all by herself! She doing better in swim class, and while she still has a bit of trouble with waiting her turn and with not messing with the floating toys the teachers use for helping to teach lessons, she understands that the appropriate thing to do in class is to "take turns." Or at least, that's what she tells me when I ask her, so she remembers it. Getting her to do it is another thing. On the other hand, she stuck her head underwater on the lesson after the one where the teacher told me that she had been asking to wear goggles, so that's progress! Only once, but I took Laila to a lesson where the parents spent the entire time trying to convince their son to get into the water and he simply would not do it. Laila has never had a problem like that.

We used to keep her door locked at night so she wouldn't get up and get in trouble, but since we're trying to teach her to go to the bathroom on her own, we've stopped. She used to bust out of her room just after we put her down for bed all the time, but she doesn't do that anymore. She's transitioning into a period where she actually wants to go to sleep. I don't expect this to last but I'll enjoy it while it does.

Lately she's been really into her Yoto, which is essentially a radio-esque toy. It has a daily short podcast or music on it at base, and then you can buy cards that kids can put in with various short stories or songs on them. Laila has been listening to a lot of the Little Mermaid. I was initially very skeptical of it because we have a rule about no flashing lights and no interactive buttons for Laila's toys, but I was won over by being told that there weren't videos to accompany the stories, it was just pixelated images and no more than one per chapter--so Little Mermaid only has three pictures (one of Ariel, one of King Triton, and one of Prince Eric). The music only has the image of a radio. We have been stopping her from skipping chapter after chapter, though, in the same way we don't keep reading if she skips ahead in her books anymore. Teaching patience is very important, even though Laila is definitely not happy about having to learn it.

She's turning into a fashionista as well. After five years, sashagee started wearing her earrings again and Laila immediately decided she wanted to wear them too, so we got her some shiny stickers that we use for "earrings." A couple weeks ago while we waiting for the bus, there was a woman wearing a bear of high-heeled gogo boots, and Laila physically put her hands on my cheeks, turned my head, and she, "She [I] like her boots!" Only four and she's very concerned with cuteness.

What other ways will she grow and change?

Final image: the cupcakes that sashagee baked for Laila's birthday.

( Butterflycakes )

How time flies!

Laila is actually gone this weekend because sashagee and I are going to a concert, but we've already gotten news from my parents that she's full of energy, always running around, wanting to paint, read books, go for walks...she's definitely too big for four walls.

For so long we've been worried about Laila's language acquisition, especially after all of her brain troubles, but it seems like she's finally starting to realize the value of using words to communicate. It's still a bit hard to pry them out of her around us, where she'll fall back on grabbing our hands and trying to pull us toward whatever it is that she wants us to do, but she's started using full sentences when she doesn't remember that she's not supposed to talk. The subject of this post came out unbidden, and just recently when I was at the office sashagee sent me this:

sashagee: "Guess what?"
Laila: "Donuts."
sashagee tries not to laugh
Laila: "Donuts."
sashagee, hiding a smile: "Donuts?"
Laila: "Donuts! Let's eat some donuts!"

Regardless of her use of words, all the ideas are there. She knows what she wants and what she wants is donuts.

The big exciting health news is that we have finally, finally got her medicine right and Laila has not had a seizure since a few weeks after I wrote her last baby update. Now, her seizure detection mechanism on her bed goes off and we rush in, and it's always to just find a smiling Laila who's happy to see us. B"H we won't have to worry about it any more.

We enrolled Laila in swimming classes around the middle of January. Thanks to various things we've only been to a couple classes, and they've so far had mixed results. Laila loves being in the water, but the first two classes she kept dumping the floating foam toys that the instructors kept in baskets and they had to keep retrieving them. The second class she was a bit of a terror, and I overheard the instructor mention how stressful teaching her was, but the third class she was a lot calmer and more willing to listen to instructions. I kind of attribute that to extenuating circumstances, though--sashagee thinks that when she first got excited and pushed off the wall to splash around, she got a big mouthful of water and it scared her into caution. We can't rely on that to happen every time, though it sure would be nice. She tends to be foolhardy and while I'm glad she's not too scared, there's a good medium that would be nice to find.

Just about all little girls go through this phase, and now it's Laila's turn--she's a fairy princess:



sashagee's parents got her the wings, the wand, and the heels. The camera has basically not left her neck since she got it, other than taking it away to be charged. And let me tell you, whoever designed that camera is a genius, because the battery runs out in about 30 minutes. Well, I think so--Laila takes about 20 pictures a minute when she's not flipping through all the in-built Hello Kitty filters, so it's possible that that battery would last longer under ideal circumstances. On the other hand, maybe 20 pictures a minute is ideal for a three-year-old.

Laila's other big thing she does not is she's always dragging me into her room to drive her toy cars down on her rug. sashagee got her a rug that has roads and all kinds of scenery on it--mountains, forests, a hospital, a volcano, a pretzel shop, etc--and she loves grabbing me to pull me in to "drive on the road." Of course, that often turns into building with blocks, or watching the colored light projector's ceiling lights that, or using her toddler toolkit to build some simple shapes. It's no surprise that she can't keep much attention on anything--it's our job to help teach her how to do it.

What other ways will she grow and change?