What did you bring to the party?

Michael learned this question and its special answer from (I sorry to admit) one of my cousins while we were in Canada in August. Ever since then he has been trying to train Tovina in the proper answer. Unfortunately, he has succeeded.

If you haven't made out the answer, Tovina is saying, "2 guns and a 6 pack." This would be in reference to her 2 might guns (or biceps as some people call them) which she holds up for all to see and her impressive 6-pack abs which she then points to.

After all, what else do you really need for a good party?

In the name of full disclosure, she actually only has 2 pack abs. No picture of this, you'll just have to trust us on this one.

SpiderFrogs! (Or more about the boom boom hat)

Remember I told you about T's hat that protects her from thunder storms? Well here it is!

But since it is hard to get a sense of it just sitting there, here is the hat *on* Tovina's head.
(Tovina is being tickled by Benson. The hat does not seem to protect her from that.)
. >

Here is T describing the powers of the hat in her own words (with Mommy providing translations)


And here is more of the B vs T tickle battle

Never made it out of the stable

Last month while my folks were visiting they taught Tovina many important things.

This was not one of them

Repertoire

This past week we document some of Tovina's singing repertoire. Its all on YouTube, I've just copied it below so you don't have to click over if you don't want to.

Here is her go to song for almost any occasion - the ABCs

The only reason this is 'almost' any occasion instead of ALL occasions is because of how much she likes Happy Birthday.

If you're happy and you know it

Michael taught Tovina that sticking out one’s tongue must be accompanied by a certain amount of silly noises. She seems to have evolved that into silly noise with no tongue sticking out. There is another version of the song which you can see here. I particularly like the clap way at the end.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

In case you were wondering, that second verse is ‘Up a diamond in the sky’

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes


Hokey Pokey

I particularly like how T says hokey pokey. Not so clear why the next verse calls for putting her head on the floor, but there you go.

Did you notice everyone of these ends in clapping? That is a critical feature of all Tovina songs.

Tovina was really getting into singing and then watching herself on the video, but it started to be a little difficult once she decided that she would rather watch herself than sing in front of the camera. You can see this battle play out below.


*As a side benefit of posting all these videos and labeling each one, I can now spell repertoire all by myself!

Big Bed (again)

We are trying out the big bed in Tovina's room again. We gave this a shot back in March but then went back to the crib after a few mishaps and a whole bunch of travel. She does not seem quite so excited this round. In fact, all last week when I gave her the choice of big or little bed, she chose little. Tonight Michael and she read stories in the big bed together. Then she had one book that she read out loud to herself as Michael told her goodnight.

This is a good thing as she can no longer stretch out in her crib - though that might be because it is only a pack-n-play and rather stunted in size.

Boom boom

Two of the last 3 nights there has been booming thunder while Tovina is trying to go to sleep and for the first time, she seems to care.
a lot
'Boom boom Mommy!' she tells me.
I explained it was thunder and that it was a noise that came with the rain (she likes rain.)
Still seemed to be pretty unsettling stuff though.
'Cover eyes?'
Huh? Turned out she wanted to wear some sort of eye mask to deal with the noise. (Love toddler logic.) But I wasn't about to give her one of the many masks we have collected on planes because the various ties and straps that go around the head make me too nervous.
'How about a hat? We can pull it way down and cover your eyes.'
okay
So an appropriate hat was found (spider frogs! more on that another time) and put on her head and she lay back down and went to sleep. Nothing more was thought of this.
Then last night it happened again.
'Boom Boom daddy! Hat!'
Who knew that the application of a hat solved thunderstorms so well?

I'm sleeping

This week Tovina decided to turn into a teenager.
Wha?
Well, when we went to get her out of her crib, instead of being all excited and ready to come out and play and eat, she grabbed her pacifiers, laid back down and said, 'I'm sleepy!'

What happened?


Luckily she now seems back to normal and is her previous rambunctious self with way more energy than her parents can muster in the morning - just the way it should be.

Playing instruments

One of the joys of big cousins is that they tend to have cool toys, or in this case, instruments. Tovina explored the joys of piano and drum playing while in Winnipeg. She was really quite good as long as you are not so concerned about things like tone, rhythm, or consistency.

Clearly she needs to have an instrument of her own at home, though we are leaning more towards the keyboard than a drum set.

To give you that I'm-really-there sort of feeling, here is a video of her playing

and more

and for more you can go here and here

Straws, check!

Last September, while in Winnipeg, we took Tovina to a restaurant and Mari taught her to use a straw. It turned out to be a learning experience for both of them.

Yesterday, we returned to the scene of the original crime and had a whole new straw experience. I was a little shocked but here you can clearly see the 2 culprits deliberately not understanding what the problem might be.

Can you guess what the issue is?

Tovina is happy. Zaida is happy. Why isn't Mommy thrilled?


'Cause that is soda that Zaida just gave to Tovina and she will clearly no longer be fooled by my, 'You won't like Mommy's drink.'
He claimed that he thought Mari had given Tovina soda last year though it is clearly water in the picture. Mmmm hmmmm.
Ah well, I knew it wouldn't last forever.

Sleeping and potty training part 2

The other day I posted about nap time. That night we had another adventure.
After I had put T down in the big bed I heard her up and moving. Eventually I went into her room to check on her. As a reminder, when we checked on her at nap time that day she had no pants on and was missing a diaper. This time she has removed her one piece pajamas from most of her body and they were dragging behind her from her ankles because she can't manage to pull them over her feet.
She also had no diaper.
She was so proud of her nakedness and I was so surprised by it that I cracked up.

Once I calmed down I agreed to try out her pull-up diapers, put her child potty in her room, and leave her in the big bed.
After I had put T down in the big bed I heard her up and moving. Eventually I went into her room to check on her because she started crying for help. This time all clothes and diapers were intact. In fact, she had added to her ensemble.
If you haven't already guessed - which I really couldn't - Tovina had taken the removable seat ring from her toilet and pulled it upside down over her head and then squeezed her arms through the opening so that they were trapped next to her cheeks. And those were not normally the cheeks that get stuck to the seat.
I laughed so hard I almost cried. Unfortunately it meant I was incapable of getting the camera and taking a picture.

Upon extraction she was placed in her crib.

Nap time

We have been having some difficultly with sleeping recently. Tovina has been trying to convince us she is ready to move to her big bed but she likes to get out of it and wander around rather than go to sleep. We have been giving her big bed trials where, if she asks, she is allowed to lay down to sleep in the big bed but if she gets up and gets out of bed after that she goes back into the crib. It is not clear she understands the connection yet.

She has also started to employ delaying techniques. Water, toilet, book, and renewed requests for going back to the big bed are all popular.

It is reminiscent of the beginning of sleep training with her taking between 5 and 30 minutes to go to sleep. We have decided that we need to get tough for our own peace or mind. That led to today.

Today we put her down for her nap and over an HOUR later she still had not settled. She was clearly tired but if she wasn't going to sleep after over 80 minutes of 'quiet' then we might as well entertain the idea of letting her out of the crib - especially as she was beginning to ramp herself up. Michael stuck his head in to see what was going on.

Michael opened the door and saw Tovina standing in her crib.
Tovina, 'I pooed!'
Michael, 'Really?' This is what usually precedes requests for the toilet so a healthy amount of skepticism is warranted.
Tovina pointed to center of crib and used a new favorite phrase of hers, 'What happened?'
It was at this point that Michael realized Tovina was holding her diaper in one hand and with her other hand was pointing to a poo that was laying in the middle of the crib.
That was when he called me in so that I could witness this first hand.

We are very grateful that she did NOT decide to decorate her crib or herself or ignore what was going on and lay down in her crib and nap. Apparently she had a good reason for not falling asleep. Other than a little on her foot and a corresponding footprint or two, there was surprisingly little collateral damage. We managed to quickly strip the crib, get her cleaned up and in new clothes (same diaper though - it was still clean), and back into bed in less than 15 minutes. She was awake when I started typing this (12 minutes ago) but has already fallen asleep.

More tricks

What else has Tovina been up to these days? In addition to the whole swimming thing, T has also gotten ready for baseball season.

Well, maybe not really. But she does look like she's ready, doesn't she?
In truth, her latest tricks are more verbal. In this video she counts up to 8 before deciding that watching herself on the camera is much more important. Some days she makes it up to the teens, but then everything starts sounding like 14 until she very excitedly exclaims Twenty!

Learning a little too well

The past couple of weeks Tovina has started using the toilet. She is actually very excited about it and we take in books to read to her to ensure that she doesn't get bored. We thought we were doing so well as she has started walking up to us, saying 'poo' while waving her hand in the 'toilet' sign!
Whenever she would give this performance, the parent she approached would whisk her away to the bathroom, help her out of her trousers, sit her on her special seat, and read her a story... or 5. It was so much fun watching her learn how to use the toilet and know we were that much closer to a diaper free child!

Or at least that's what we thought she was learning.

Today she showed us the real lesson:
If Tovina tells Mommy or Daddy that she needs to poo, she is then guaranteed special attention, some congratulatory clapping, and a great story time including the Hun Cawpill! (or The Very Hungry Caterpillar as some people know it.) Today she used this ploy 6 times with Michael and 2 times with me including the last time where she tried to put off going to sleep by exclaiming 'poo! poo!' as I was laying her down for the night.

Sneaky child.

Balloons!

This last week when grocery shopping, Tovina was treated to a helium balloon by the store.

She was thrilled!
She was thrilled in the car when she bounced it around,
and when it floated out of reach
She was thrilled when it was in the house
and she let it slowly release
She was thrilled as Daddy caught it
just before a ladder was needed
and she was FURIOUS when the balloon's string was then tied to various items, including her own wrist, in an effort to keep it away from the vaulted ceilings.
SO MAD!!!

She earned herself a nap she was so distraught.

After the nap a longer string was tied to the first string and a weight to the new end which seemed to alleviate the worst of whatever horrible thing she imagined we were doing to confine her poor poor balloon.
This eventually led to the following video. A longer version is here.

All better!

Oh, and the screeching? That's a new treat too.

Banana please

Tovina demonstrating her speaking skills.. and how she sticks out her tongue

Some mighty fine programing

Tonight I introduced T to come classic Sesame Street. See (C?), I was trying to sing "Up & Down" to her but I couldn't remember all of the lyrics though Tovina enthusiastically raised her hands up to the ceiling and put them down on the floor whenever the song called for said actions.
Not to be put off by my lack of remembered details, we headed over to my computer where we found this.
Tovina loved it so we watched it 3 times.
Our next big winner was the letter "B". This led to a lot of lip closing, cheek puffing, and bbbb noises.
Realizing that it was time to pull out the big guns, I introduced T to a classic that she has heard sung many a time but had never before seen with her very own eyes. The pinball song which counts 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12!

It was quite the learning experience for her and helped me remember why I loved Sesame Street so much!

Pitch training

Michael has a pitch pipe. It was a gift from his brother years and years ago. Recently, Michael unburied the pipe and plays single notes for Tovina. If she is in the right mood, after hearing a note, Tovina will sing it back. Then she reaches for the pipe, puts it to her mouth, and sings the note again.
What I am trying to explain is that she thinks Michael is singing the notes and that the pitch pipe just happens to be in his mouth at the same time. She doesn't realize that he is blowing through the device. Apparently if a person wants to sing a single note for more than a couple seconds, one is suppose to put this strange object to one's mouth. I'm sure T has decided it is just one more oddity in the world those bizarre adults have created around her. Luckily for us, she's decided she's game and is willing to play along.

I'm trying to capture it on video. If I manage to get it right, I'll let you know!

Reading to the clean bear

After Tovina finished changing her bear the other night, she then threw it into her crib/pak'n'play and proceeded to read it bedtime stories. You can see her starting off with Good Night Gorilla in this first picture.
She seemed to be concerned that the bear not suffer from lack of pre-nap reading so she then proceeded to read at least 2 more books. I have a bunch of them on video but they are a little shaky as I kept starting to laugh.
Below is the video from Moo Baa Lalala, another classic.
To help you out, captions have been added to the video.
Lines from the book are marked with 'text'
(my comments are enclosed thusly)
In many cases Tovina will sign (with her own special 19 month old accent) while speaking and I have tried to point out when this is happening.

Big bed

A few hours ago when Michael and I laid Tovina down on the big bed (see: adult size) to change her into her pajamas before putting her down to sleep in her crib something new happened. (Before folks ask, we do not have a change table since we've always had adult beds in T's rooms and that seemed just as easy.)
We took off her coat and hat and shoes and pants and shirt as she tried to decide whether or not to cooperate. (This is not the new stuff. Her nightly decision is pretty standard and tends to have a 50/50 sort of outcome.)
Then she held onto to her feet as we changed her diaper. (Again, not so new though still special since sometimes she tries to stick them in the dirty diaper as it is being removed.)
Then, once she was all wiped and cleaned and diapered and snapped up she tried to get away by scrambling her onesie* clad self off to the other side of the bed. (Still, pretty usual although I do find it shocking how hard it can be for a 140lb adult to stop a 30lb child from crawling away. Especially when you add in the fact that the adult's arms alone are the length of said child.)
But THEN (and here comes the new stuff in case the capitalized letters didn't give it away) she lifted up the blankets, scooted her legs underneath, laid her head on the pillow and clearly settled in for the long haul!

Our little girl was ready for the big girl bed and clearly and calmly let us know since we silly parents hadn't figured it out on our own.

It was shocking how little she looked in the bed - she's still smaller then the pillow on which her head was resting. I wish I had a picture, but as she was getting ready to sleep I felt that startling her with a camera flash was probably not in the best of taste.

Just had a thought. Tovina's normal morning routine is to sort of run laps around the inside of her crib and kind of bounce off the walls as she goes around..... hmmm... tomorrow morning may be verrrryyyyy interesting.


*Now that I just learned that onesie is a trademarked term, I'm not sure she is actually wearing one(sie). She may just be in a creeper! jeepers!

ABCs Take 1

It was over a week ago when we realized that Tovina was singing along with the alphabet song. She has already shown noticeable improvement... but that will be another video

One of my favorite parts is 'L, M, N, O, P'.