A Day at the Parks

It's March in Texas, which means it's sunny and beautiful and warm. Warmish. Saturday was cooler than the 80F days previous, but still lovely for a day out. After a trip to the Farmer's Market, we went to Landa Library, a beautiful old estate that was donated to the city for a gorgeous library with wonderful grounds. In addition to finding great new books, the kids get to play in a fabulous playground surrounded by lovely old trees. And because the day was so spectacular, we decided to check out Hardberger Park as well.

The best part was watching the kids play together. Nothing says happiness like watching your kids run and laugh and hug and laugh some more. For more pictures, go HERE.

Sibling Fun

Lenaïc's favourite thing is to push stuff around. If it has wheels, all the better (better for our floors, too). Fortunately, Angelina's favourite thing is to ride and be pushed.

They make a good team.

Playtime

I think I'm going to get rid of all toys in the house.
All we really need is -
*boxes - all kinds, great for sleeping, hiding, using as a house for animals...
*tupperware/plastic containers - great for stacking, throwing, discovering (what's hidden in the cupboard?)
*metal lids for pots - great for making noise, er, music
*trash cans with lids - great for opening and hiding toys
*large plastic bins - great for sitting in while your friend pulls you across the yard
*rocks - many many uses
*buckets - great for filling with water (from the rain barrels) and all Mommy's landscaping rocks
*sticks - uses too numerous to count
*recycle bin with lots of newspaper and carboard - great for taking out and throwing around the room

furniture, blankets, and pillows...

And Friends


Kids' imaginations are endless

When there's a will to play, there's always a way....

Ok, so we did put a stop to it and said she couldn't play with the furniture like this, but I confess to being rather impressed with her creativity!

Embrace the Mess!

Thise article in the New York Times struck a cord with me.
And no, it's not just an excuse to be messy. Kids really do need space and time to be free. To make up games, to create their own stories, to turn a box, some tupperware, cans, you name it into whatever their imagination decides.


Last night Angelina made a "slide" out of the couch cushions. Realizing it wasn't sturdy enough for her to slide down, she decided it was perfect for her many stuffed animals. So along they came, and "hid" under the remaining cushions.

And of course there's Lenaïc who likes to play the "let's discover what's in the back of the cupboard/bottom of the drawer" game which requires emptying out their contents completely.


While I'd like to have a little less mess, at least there's the Clean Up Song. Clean Up, Clean up, everybody clean up. Let's work together, everyone do their share."

Gymnastics!

One thing about having Angelina home while I'm on maternity leave, I need to find ways to keep her busy! The Little Gym has a free trial class for gymnastics, so we decided to give it a go one Tuesday. She LOVED it.



Listening to the teacher was of course a challenge, but she had so much fun playing on the bars, balance beam, floors...



However, I think we're going to hold off signing her up. It's a 5 month commitment and a lot of money. We've decided to sign her up for dance class instead this spring, and save gymnastics for fall. She just needs MOVEMENT!


(pictures taken with my phone, so not the best, but you get the idea...)

The Princess

We don't have TV. Or rather, we don't have cable. We do have DVDs, so the only shows she watches at homes are ones we've chosen to buy. I know at daycare she does watch TV so she's seen the whole range on Nickelodeon.

I read recently that the process for little girl fascination goes as follows:
2 years old - Dora
3 years old - Disney Princesses
4 years old - Hannah Montana (or is it Bratz?)

And sure enough, at her 3rd birthday, she was overwhelmed with Disney Princess stuff. I thought she wouldn't know what it was, but she did. She didn't know all the names, she just knew they were princesses. I'm not so thrilled with this trend.

See, as annoying as some find Dora the Explorer, I love her. Her mission is usually to save someone/clean the sea kingdom/rescue some animals/save Friendship Day/explore the world. And, she does it in multiple languages! Can you see why I like her even though she tends to yell a bit?

As much as I like all things Disney, the princesses, on the other hand, are all about finding Prince Charming who will save them from a life of drudgery. Now, I'm not opposed to my own Prince Charming, but I happen to prefer the idea of a little girl who goes out to save the world, relying upon her wits and her friends over the beauty who sleeps until the prince kisses her....(though I wouldn't complain if Angelina took to sleeping a wee bit more).

And Hannah Montana and Bratz/Barbie? Well, I honestly don't know much about them, except from photos of little girls dressed far too grown up.

I'm not really a prude, but I'd like my Princess to have her own power, intelligence, and inner strength to take on the world.

As for Angelina, well, turns out she's not so into the princesses afterall. She DOES however, like to call herself a princess. She loves to dress up in frilly dresses and twirl around. She also likes to explore, and play in the mud, and use tools, and definitely does not wait for someone else to guide her. No, she's ready to tackle the world on her own.




Lately, however, she's decided just being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be. She's taken to saying "I'm the QUEEN!"

Riding the trains

Trying to have some holiday time amidst the vacation that turned out not to be a vacation at all, we took Angelina to Swiss Vapeur Parc> Friday (which also happened to be our 5th wedding anniversary). It's located waaaaay on the other end of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman), just on the border with France, in a valley surrounded by Alps.

The scenery was of course stunning, and though it was cloudy and rainy in Vaud, this area was spectacularly sunny and beautiful that day. And very importantly, there were KIDS. Angelina NEEDS kids. Not a day goes by where she doesn't say "Mommy, I need to go to kids!"

Since it was towards the end of the school year, all the school kids were on assorted field trips. Didn't make it too hectic though, and Miss Social Butterfly made a new friend: a little American-Swiss girl, about to turn 7, was visiting with her American mom and started up a conversation. Soon Angelina wouldn't leave her side. Good thing the little girl was as enamored of Angelina as she was of her.

She had a blast on the trains. There's only two trains and one track, fairly long rides but after a few times the grownups get a bit tired. Not so the kids. She wanted to go over and over and over again. Her favourite thing is to go through the "caves." This is what she calls tunnels. She LOVES them, both with trains and in the car. More on caves/tunnels later. All in all, a great day.

Super Nina!

Mommy says "You're my big girl!"

Angelina responds: " I'm not big gril. I'm SUPERNINA Mundie Pie!"


I guess it's from watching superhero cartoons at daycare, but sometime back she started calling herself "Super Nina!" raising her arms and cheering.


About Mundie Pie: One day we were playing and she decides we'll role play. I'd be her and she'd be me. So she keeps saying something about "mundie pie." "Come here mundie pie! Let's play mundie pie!" I thought it was some sort of game. Finally I realized: Mundie Pie = Honey Pie, which I call her often. I didn't think I called her it that much, but apparently I do, as it's stuck in her head.

Summer Days

Swimsuits Optional
She is clothed here, but that was only after I insisted....

Angelina has a fondness for nakedness.....

A common weekend occurrence: She's outside playing. She sees Wiley and Felice. They decide they're hot and want to get into the kiddie pool. While Wiley and Felice get their swimsuits on, Angelina rips off whatever she is wearing and climbs in.

Mostly I don't care, except for the potential for sunburn (and poop - she's not quite potty trained, almost but not there yet, so I insist on a swim diaper).

I do wonder if she'll ever develop a sense of modesty or will just prefer to run around with as little on as possible. At least she's having fun in the pool!

Bolleyball

Frédéric plays indoor intramural volleyball on Friday nights. Usually we don't go because it's too late for Angelina (who turns into a pumpkin - a scary one! - by about 8PM), but there are a few other kids there from his team. So one night we finally decided to go. Now she's hooked. She always knew he went off to play on Friday nights, but now that she's seen it, she won't stop talking about "Bolleyball."

Every time Frédéric leaves the house she asks if he's going to "Bolleyball" and if not there, "Austia?" (his last trip was to Austria)

However, I don't think we'll be bringing her often. I had a hard time keeping her off the court. She wanted to play.

♪Singing in the Rain ♪

♪♪♪and Dancing....in the rain! ♪♪♪

So she's not quite Gene Kelly, but she was VERY excited to see the rain (it doesn't rain often here). As soon as it started pouring, Angelina yells "My Umbrella! My Umbrella! Outside!"

And of course she's not content to just watch the rain, she has to stand IN it.

In the biggest puddle.




I had to drag her in, rather unhappy....

Just Call me "Dirt Girl!"

♫"Dirt Pile/Dirt Pile/ Let's Play Dirt Pile!"♫
Yes, she was singing.
"Look Mommy! I'm Queen of the Mountain!"



She is clearly happiest when she's on her dirt pile.




This is what's left of the 12 yards of dirt I bought a few weeks ago for the grass. I'm rapidly making my way through it. Hopefully not too fast for Angelina's sake. This is also the dirt pile of "Mud" fame from last weekend's play.


This weekend I managed to keep her from using water, despite her begging me a million times for "Water! Mommy!" I didn't, however, manage to keep her clothes on. On Friday she sat on the pile, shirtless, and kept pouring dirt over herself.


Today she was content to leave her shirt on, provided she could continue to pour dirt over herself.

Never met a puddle she didn't like....

Need I say more?

Dresses

I guess she's really a girl.

She hasn't worn dresses much lately since we don't have any "winter" dresses, only sun dresses and as she doesn't normally like stockings, I haven't bothered to get her any.

She had other things in mind though. From Saturday where she HAD to wear the black felt/white taffeta dress to Bubblehead, along with the green socks and purple flowered tights. Then squealed "Look Maman! I'm wearing a DRESS!"

To Sunday when she insisted on wearing her favourite multi-colored dress with stockings (and later sweats). We've gotten A LOT of life out of this dress. Given to us by our neighbor, Felice, it's size 18 months but she's been wearing it since before she turned 1 and still wears it now at 2.5. It seems to grow with her.







To Monday when getting ready for daycare we put on her thick brown woolly sweatpant type pants because a cold front swooped in over night. She insisted on wearing a dress. I finally agreed as long as she wore a sweater over it....

A Style All Her Own

Earlier Saturday (before Papa came home) we decided to go to Bubblehead to see Melody (the owners' 5 month old daughter whom Angelina loves). She was ready to go, but HAD to wear a dress. I obliged, even though she was wearing almost hiking shoes, green socks, and purple leggings... She put it on and was twirling around saying "Look mommy! I'm wearing a dress!" while lifting up the skirt.

We saw Lucien (and his mom and dad) at Bubblehead, which was tons of fun for her.

She slept in that dress too. We finally managed to pry it off her this morning.

But then...

It was kind of chilly, and she'd picked out her purple stockings to wear. However when Fredo put on a sweatshirt she freaked, would not wear it. I managed to get her into a T-shirt. Ok, but it was cold. Apparently she has this inner oven which keeps her warm. She never wants a sweater. Over the course of the next 30 minutes she changed to a sleeveless dress to this sundress. She wanted to put on her swimming stuff but we managed to stop that....so here she is, purple cotton winter stockings and summer dress....good thing it was warm by mid-morning.

Make Believe, or not?

Angelina has trouble with "pretend."

Now, she does seem to have quite the imagination about some things, but the concept of pretending you're playing at tea party vs. actually having tea or coffee hasn't quite sunk in.


She got a tea set for Christmas from Nana, as well as a whole box of pretend cooking stuff from her Allegrini cousins (complete with miniature boxes of dried goods, empty of course - all pretend).

First thing she did was go to the Nespresso machine (that would be our coffee) and try to fill the little toy pot with coffee. We said "No, it's for Tea." So she asked for tea. We tried to explain it was pretend, but she was having none of it, she wanted to turn the kettle on.

Frédéric and I tried to show her how to play pretend tea party.

Nope.

It was the real thing or bust.

Yet, she can easily imagine Mouse wants Chocolate...and that the stuffed tiger is actually Baby Jaguar from Dora's Animal Adventures.

But no liquid in a tea pot and pretend it's tea? No way.



And I think I already mentioned how she had to take ALL the pieces of this tea set to bed with her that night....

And not to be forgetten, the other girl in the family

Chakapu....
Poor thing, she's been neglected lately, due in part to my developing allergy to cat hair. It's not that bad, but I have to wash my hands as soon as I pet her and I can let her lay to close to me or I have a sneezing fit.


So she's taken to occupying Angelina's chair whenever possible. Perhaps that way she'll get more love?










And then there's the devil...oops, angel child.
I should fix these photos, because they're actually quite sweet. Angelina was playing Grandmaman Gisele's old guitar and was very cute about it.

But I think the flash captured something else, something which often lurks in this child.... she's the sweetest Angel one minute, and then she seems possessed by something very un-angel like. I don't know where she gets that.

More fun witth photography

Try as I may, I can't convince her to turn the camera around. At least not very often.

Tour de France, here we come!

Angelina has fallen in love with bikes, at least when someone else is pedaling.

I had been talking about buying a new bike for weeks, since my last good bike was stolen (some years ago) and my attempt to be cheap by replacing it with a yard sale find meant a bike that was bent and not ridable. And after 3+ years of "I can fix it" but it not being fixed, I finally decided it was time for a new one. To cement the plan, a couple of weeks ago Angelina rode in Angela's bike seat and fell in love.

Lucky for me, my birthday was coming up and Frédéric, always paying attention, decided to surprise me with a bike. Angelina got a present too, a bike seat. I haven't managed pictures of us riding yet, but suffice it to say we're having a blast! The first two days Angelina had her new bike helmet, she wouldn't take it off, she even wanted to sleep with it. I had to hide it during the week or we'd never hear the end of it.

And more pictures here