I posted before about how Rachel calls me Momma and I don't care for it. I was a little surprised by some reactions on that one. Just a personal preference.....I like Mommy. So I told Rachel I would rather she call me Mommy instead of Mommy, which resulted in her telling me a few weeks ago, "Sometimes.....I call you Momma". Bless her heart. She's so sweet. But I did tell her that I would just rather she call me mommy.
Recently she's taken up to giving us roles. And at first it was cute. Now it's just kind of worn out its welcome. I'm fairly certain this was learned when she spent some time up in Indy with my side of the family and her cousin was constantly telling her, "I'm the mommy and you're the dog. Now go fetch." She likes to tell me and her grandmother that she's the princess and we're the sisters. One weekend she insisted on calling me queen, Jason king, and herself princess. The WHOLE weekend. The "game" as it were, only lasts a few sentences then she's off on the next thing. And perhaps 5 minutes later will tell me she's the mommy and I'm the sister. I finally started replying, "ok, you can be the princess, but I'm still the mommy." I love my daughter and I LOVE her imagination. But sometimes I do get weary of it.
So.....let's do a photo posting! I'll probably think of more stories as I go:
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The next few photos are going to be from Rachel at school. (I really like the blog her teacher posts). This summer the school went on a field trip EVERY week. They'd go to local parks, the library, pretty much every place you take small kids except the zoo (the zoo came to the school). All excellent field trips and I'm glad she got to go on them! This one is at the Evansville museum, where Jason's mother and Grandfather are docents. Howell made sure he was the docent on the day that Montessori came to the Planetarium and he did the show. When I picked Rachel up from school that day she was excited to tell me that "Papa was in space!" And for a few weeks afterwards she would ask him if he was going back to space again.
This past weekend she decided she wanted to wear a pretty outfit. I honestly don't get to dress her up hardly at all. Since we now all watch church on Saturday mornings together I don't even get to dress her up to go out to church on Sunday! So I have a lot of cute outfits and she rarely gets to wear them. When she wanted to dress up I instantly thought to myself, "No! She'll get the outfit dirty and ruin it!" which was quickly followed by, "Meh. It's not like she ever gets to wear her cute stuff....just let her." So she did. And I grabbed my camera and went for a walk to try to take a ton of photos and hope for at least one really good one. I got a couple.....
Here she is holding her baby cousin August:
Here's another cutie pattootie outfit I got for her.....and the Jesse doll I found that she adores:
And here's a really good story:
The magnets in the photo above have been on our fridge since before Rachel could walk. She doesn't play with them often. But I noticed the other day she had rearranged them and you can see the word "Pray" came out of it. She doesn't know her letters by sight yet, let alone can she spell. No one else ever messes with the magnets, so this had to be done by her. The reason this is a good story...
When we first moved here I decided that every night we would all sit around the table and have dinner together. (Yeah yeah, once in a while we eat in front of the tv...) And each night we pray before dinner and Rachel just seemed intrigued. So much so, that one time we forgot and she insisted we needed to pray. I think she enjoys it and of course I'll encourage that! She's even taken to praying on her own before dinner. Right now it comes out, "Thank you for puppy dogs.......thank you for kitty cats...." and sometimes there's a thank you for mommy, daddy and papa....although not so much recently. So when I came into the kitchen and noticed that was on the fridge I HAD to take a photo to remember it.
Before bed we always read a book. On the weekends I try to make it a biblically-related one as I've managed to acquire several. Her favorite seems to be the book about prayers. It's a tiny book that Jalaine got for her for one of my book showers and I'm elated that it's one of her favorites. It's really helped me to be able to open up to her and teach her about God since we're not going to a church now with a children's program (although I know she misses it....I do plan to take her once in a while if it works out). So the fact that my 3 yr old likes to pray and likes to listen when I talk to her about God....I truly feel blessed!
This photo above was my birthday dinner. I've already posted that Rachel like sushi but on this night she insisted on eating my Ikura (Salmon Roe) which is not normally anyone else's favorite. She loves it! She used the kids' chopsticks to pick up the roe balls one by one and eat them. We got her chicken fingers and fries and she didn't touch them. Ah.....love that she loves sushi and tofu!
We are really blessed that our hard work to keep Rachel from constantly wanting cookies, ice cream and candy have paid off. Rarely will she ask for any of those things. She knows those are earned. When she does something I know she doesn't want to do without complaint I'll let her get some M & M's from the candy jar. When she eats a good dinner without a lot of prompting there's usually ice cream. And once in a great while we'll all go out for ice cream together. This has resulted in her helping herself in the fridge and she'll actually ask for foods she knows we won't say no to....bananas, apples, cheese, juice/milk. I try to put a lot of that on the lower shelves and for the most part she helps herself.
I can also tell her to go upstairs and get dressed and she'll pick out an outfit that (usually) matches and dress herself. HOOOOOOOOOOORAY for independence!! I love it! Bathroom time usually doesn't need much help from us anymore.
After dinner she'll asked to be excused and immediately go in and wash her hands and face.
She's really listening and understanding (most of the time, not all!) and this has led to Jason and I feeling a lot of relief. She does still need a LOT of help and she honestly gets restless at home on the weekends when we're exhausted and she wants us to play with her. She does entertain herself to a point, but hey, she's 3. We can't expect her to spent 12 hours a day entertaining herself. This past weekend I decided to get her tricycle out and take her to a local elementary to let her ride it. Her knees are barely below the handle bar. We're going to have to get her a bike in the spring! I'd love to get her one for her birthday.....but that would be cruel. November is cold and she'd have to wait 5 months to ride it. So I plan to get her one in the spring with training wheels. There's also a really nice playground there and yesterday Jason and I were just worn out. No energy and Rachel was chattering/climbing excessively and I could tell she needed out of the house. So we took some chairs and set them up and let her run herself silly all over the playground. I felt a little guilty sitting there in a chair watching her play but I keep telling myself that at least I wasn't playing on my phone and at least we made an effort to get her out of the house and doing something active. I had really wanted to take her to the zoo...more to justify the purchase of the membership pass so I could go whenever I wanted than anything, but it's been too stinkin' hot. Not to mention it's a 30 minute drive over there so I feel we'd need to stay at least 2 hours to justify the drive alone. We'll get over there again sometime soon.
Anyway....those are the stories I can think of right now.
Recently she's taken up to giving us roles. And at first it was cute. Now it's just kind of worn out its welcome. I'm fairly certain this was learned when she spent some time up in Indy with my side of the family and her cousin was constantly telling her, "I'm the mommy and you're the dog. Now go fetch." She likes to tell me and her grandmother that she's the princess and we're the sisters. One weekend she insisted on calling me queen, Jason king, and herself princess. The WHOLE weekend. The "game" as it were, only lasts a few sentences then she's off on the next thing. And perhaps 5 minutes later will tell me she's the mommy and I'm the sister. I finally started replying, "ok, you can be the princess, but I'm still the mommy." I love my daughter and I LOVE her imagination. But sometimes I do get weary of it.
So.....let's do a photo posting! I'll probably think of more stories as I go:
This past weekend she decided she wanted to wear a pretty outfit. I honestly don't get to dress her up hardly at all. Since we now all watch church on Saturday mornings together I don't even get to dress her up to go out to church on Sunday! So I have a lot of cute outfits and she rarely gets to wear them. When she wanted to dress up I instantly thought to myself, "No! She'll get the outfit dirty and ruin it!" which was quickly followed by, "Meh. It's not like she ever gets to wear her cute stuff....just let her." So she did. And I grabbed my camera and went for a walk to try to take a ton of photos and hope for at least one really good one. I got a couple.....
Here she is holding her baby cousin August:
And here's a really good story:
When we first moved here I decided that every night we would all sit around the table and have dinner together. (Yeah yeah, once in a while we eat in front of the tv...) And each night we pray before dinner and Rachel just seemed intrigued. So much so, that one time we forgot and she insisted we needed to pray. I think she enjoys it and of course I'll encourage that! She's even taken to praying on her own before dinner. Right now it comes out, "Thank you for puppy dogs.......thank you for kitty cats...." and sometimes there's a thank you for mommy, daddy and papa....although not so much recently. So when I came into the kitchen and noticed that was on the fridge I HAD to take a photo to remember it.
Before bed we always read a book. On the weekends I try to make it a biblically-related one as I've managed to acquire several. Her favorite seems to be the book about prayers. It's a tiny book that Jalaine got for her for one of my book showers and I'm elated that it's one of her favorites. It's really helped me to be able to open up to her and teach her about God since we're not going to a church now with a children's program (although I know she misses it....I do plan to take her once in a while if it works out). So the fact that my 3 yr old likes to pray and likes to listen when I talk to her about God....I truly feel blessed!
We are really blessed that our hard work to keep Rachel from constantly wanting cookies, ice cream and candy have paid off. Rarely will she ask for any of those things. She knows those are earned. When she does something I know she doesn't want to do without complaint I'll let her get some M & M's from the candy jar. When she eats a good dinner without a lot of prompting there's usually ice cream. And once in a great while we'll all go out for ice cream together. This has resulted in her helping herself in the fridge and she'll actually ask for foods she knows we won't say no to....bananas, apples, cheese, juice/milk. I try to put a lot of that on the lower shelves and for the most part she helps herself.
I can also tell her to go upstairs and get dressed and she'll pick out an outfit that (usually) matches and dress herself. HOOOOOOOOOOORAY for independence!! I love it! Bathroom time usually doesn't need much help from us anymore.
After dinner she'll asked to be excused and immediately go in and wash her hands and face.
She's really listening and understanding (most of the time, not all!) and this has led to Jason and I feeling a lot of relief. She does still need a LOT of help and she honestly gets restless at home on the weekends when we're exhausted and she wants us to play with her. She does entertain herself to a point, but hey, she's 3. We can't expect her to spent 12 hours a day entertaining herself. This past weekend I decided to get her tricycle out and take her to a local elementary to let her ride it. Her knees are barely below the handle bar. We're going to have to get her a bike in the spring! I'd love to get her one for her birthday.....but that would be cruel. November is cold and she'd have to wait 5 months to ride it. So I plan to get her one in the spring with training wheels. There's also a really nice playground there and yesterday Jason and I were just worn out. No energy and Rachel was chattering/climbing excessively and I could tell she needed out of the house. So we took some chairs and set them up and let her run herself silly all over the playground. I felt a little guilty sitting there in a chair watching her play but I keep telling myself that at least I wasn't playing on my phone and at least we made an effort to get her out of the house and doing something active. I had really wanted to take her to the zoo...more to justify the purchase of the membership pass so I could go whenever I wanted than anything, but it's been too stinkin' hot. Not to mention it's a 30 minute drive over there so I feel we'd need to stay at least 2 hours to justify the drive alone. We'll get over there again sometime soon.
Anyway....those are the stories I can think of right now.
