Hi Sidra,
The last post was too long ago and it's time for an update. It's not like you haven't been doing anything. We haven't got as much video on you as your little sis lately. It's not that you're not interesting it's just that she's been doing things she's never done more often than you have lately. One thing that you've been able to do is to show a wider range of emotions in your facial expressions. We did a little photo session with you showing off that skill. You aren't really selling the mean look in these shots. You seem to be having too much fun to
wipe the smile off. Your mom actually wants to get you in an acting class to help you expose that talent.One of the pictures shows a current version of how you write your name. You're getting pretty good but you still will sometimes do the S backwards. In the other we had an unexpected snow event this past week and you had your first tandem sled ride with your sister. The video is just a little dancing you did to Kidz Bop yesterday. It doesn't really hold a candle to what you did at the state fair last summer.
An interesting story about you is a what we did last weekend. The weather was bad and we were getting weary of being cooped up in the house. Mom was up at the mountain doing some
snowboarding so it was me and you two girls. I devised a short trip to do some errands and made the last stop the local McDonalds. Having a meal there was not on the agenda. We went so you two could play in the indoor play area there. You have grown out of needing to have me come with you up into the tubes and down the slide. That's good because I needed to stay with your sister who's not big enough to go up in the tubes. You went right in and began doing lap after lap on the slide. In the process you met Isabella who told me she was almost 5 and was would have been willing to be Shira's babysitter if you hadn't distracted her. Soon, you had a group of 4 'girly girls' as you called them. I could hear you most of the time chatting and playing with your little posse who took up your 'girly girl' label without blinking. The play area for the under 3 toddlers was a little crowded and Shira was a little intimidated by the kids who were bigger and faster than her so she wasn't having a terrific time. When it came time to leave you handled it very well. You didn't whine about it but insisted on saying goodbye to your new pals. So, you yelled up the tubes "Bye Girly Girls, I have to go." Isabella's mom was nearby and got a pretty good laugh about that.We've decided not to push skiing for you this winter. You haven't shown that much interest in it and it seems like the long trip up to the mountain puts some pressure on us to get something good out of it. Ice skating is a good alternative
since it requires comfort in 'gliding' the same way skiing does. There is an ice rink in Portland but that seems like a big trip, too. In Gresham there is Skate World, a roller rink.We've gone to Skate World a couple of times with mixed results. The first time I approached it the way I would if I were going alone or with an adult. Let's get in there and get our skates on and start skating! Bad idea. I realized after that we should have gone in and watched for a while and maybe get skates after we'd seen everything and checked out the best place to put them on. So the first time you had a meltdown and fell and hit your cheek on a bench in the off rink area. It ended with you saying you wanted to go home and me saying we could go then if you promised to come back another time.
One of the pictures here is related to the Skate World Saga. You were doing some drawing and coloring and wanted company. You convinced me to draw. So I drew you with skates on and the speaker playing music. You looked at it and said, "You need to draw you next to me." So I added myself. Then you said "you need to draw the bench that I fell on" so I added that. Some of you will recognize the Red Sox shirt I was wearing.
The next time we went to the rink we did the slow approach. We went in and
watched skaters for a while, looked at the DJs booth, noticed the air hockey and other arcade games and saw a girl about your age dressed as a princess, wearing a tiarra. You were the one who suggested we get our skates and the one who suggested we go off the carpet and on to the rink. We only did one short stint on the rink from one exit to the next but there were no tears so it was an improvement.Recently your school had a special day on the 100th day of school. You were supposed to bring 100 of something. We got you a little spiral notebook with 100 pages in it. I numbered the pages and also 100 little round stickers. Then you went through each page and put the matching sticker on each page. The 100th day was also a day of tumbling and teacher Carol (your mom) had the students line up and count 100 steps around the gym.
Sometimes I write words on your easel and have you read them. Usually I choose a group of words that rhyme and have three letters. Sometimes it's sight words. I have been trying a few four letter words that rhyme with the smaller ones and have a blended sound at the beginning. You're getting much better at that.
We had some interesting conversations about what you remember a while ago. I remember writing here that I thought you were getting to the point where you would remember significant things the rest of your life. But we talked about a couple of things I thought you might remember and you didn't. It surprised me because you have a really good memory. The topic that came up was horses and I told you that you had ridden one and you didn't know anything about it. So I showed you some pictures and a video and you watched them as if it had never happened. The same with the time you steered the big cruise boat your mom and I had an anniversary dinner on. Both of those events happened within a month of each other and you were a little more than 2½ then.
Love, Aba
