Shadows, what scary things they can be

Last night, Naomi was playing in the living room when she saw her shadow against the wall. She asked, “Who’s that?” and pointed at it. I told her it was her shadow. “my shadow?” she said. For the next 5 minutes she ran around trying to touch her shadow, finding it on the floor, under her feet, on the wall. She would laugh as she exclaimed that she was stepping on her shadow. She found out that mommy and daddy had shadows too. Then at one point, she threw her blanket on top of her head, and Uncle Chris who was visiting, said, “Naomi, watch out your shadow is going to get you!!” Faster than any of us could have expected, she chucked the blanket on the ground and RAN her little legs over to where Austin and I were sitting, and started crying. Guess she’s really learning how to be scared of things. We spent the next few minutes convincing her that shadow’s weren’t scary and they kept us company. Austin and I gave our own shadow’s high fives on the floor, and she eventually followed suit and managed to get excited over the game.

Pose

Naomi posed for this shot.

Also note the shoes. She picked them to match her outfit...it starts already.

Coming Soon...

Baby Wei #2 is due January 15th. We just found out the gender last night. The first thing I did at work this morning (yea it's a SLOW SUMMER FRIDAY) was check out new baby clothes. Afterall Naomi was born in the summer, and baby 2 is due in the winter...a new wardrobe is a must.


Can you tell what we're having!??

Beach Day

A couple of weekends ago we went to Point Pleasant to live out our Jersey Shore dreams. Naomi was a little apprehensive of the sand at first, but quickly got over it and had fun digging a huge hole with Austin and Auntie Priscilla. The water was too rough to really go swim, but she loved jumping in the waves at the edge of the water. She would squeal every time a wave would come and hit her feet. She also yelled out that lots of the swimmers were "Naked", and cackled like a hyena whenever the waves would wash out any of the other beach-goers enjoying the waves.

First sips of Soda

Last night Austin and I were drinking a chinese apple soda. Naomi saw me pouring the soda into our glasses, and declared, "I want some." Austin informed her that it had a lot of bubbles in it and might be too spicy. She decided she still wanted to give it a try, so I figured I'd let her have a go. See what happens next.



Transcript:
Naomi: "it's bubbles?"
me: "yea there are bubbles in there"
Naomi: "HEY it's spicy!"
me: "it's spicy? it's not spicy, it's apple soda"
Austin: "do you like it?"
Naomi: "it's not soda..."
me: "it's soda. do you want to try it again?"
Naomi: "No....yes"
Naomi: "I just want ice"
drinks...
Naomi: "aeijfei bleh bleh iofwjaofe. I don't WANT soda. It's too spicy!"

Naomi in the city.

Austin has the day off today and is taking Naomi into the city for the day with our friends Rob, Susan and their daughter Emily who are visiting us for the day from Chicago. I'm unfortunately stuck in the office on this beautiful Friday morning.

Naomi on the big train into the big apple

26 months.

Naomi is 26 months today. I totally missed her 25 month update. Now that she’s 2, are the months less important? Well I’ll try to keep doing these for as long as I can remember!

As usual another month has gone by and in this month I feel like Naomi has grown by leaps and bounds. Every night when I pick her up from daycare, I feel like she’s a little more grown up than the night before when I kissed her goodnight. It’s completely bitter sweet, and I find myself wishing time could slow down all the time.

This month, we had our first parent’s teacher’s conference since Naomi started attending Bright Horizons. Come labor day, it’ll have been exactly one year since she first started. I feel like she’s been there for so much longer! Her teacher had incredible feedback for us, and told us how much she loves having Naomi in her class. Naomi loves music, she’s always the first one to run to the middle of the room for “circle time” where they sing group songs. She quickly picks up on all the songs, and claps along and does all the actions. She also loves loves loves to dance (yes these are all things we know but it was still nice to hear). Loves to draw, paint, and basically do anything artistic. She’s advance in her verbal communications skills and is extremely independent, (sometimes frustratingly so since she wants to do everything “by myself”). She can open up all her own food during lunch time, pour her own glass of water, eat all by herself, and even wash her hands with soap all without help. She’s a good helper and likes to help clean up during the day. She’s getting much much better at sharing and understands that she has to take turns with her friends. This is a HUGE improvement over her early days in the toddler class where she got into fights with classmates, and even pushed her friend Alli at a playdate we were at, at Alli’s house! The coolest thing, other than hearing all these amazing comments from her teacher, is that they gave us a portfolio book to take home and look through. It’s basically a big binder that they started maintaining for Naomi from day 1 of daycare, back when she was in the Infant room. It includes pictures of her, pieces of artwork that she’s done, and observations about her development from her teachers. One of the observations that sticks out in my mind was written by her infant teacher when she was 18 months. It said “Today Naomi saw her friend crying, and went to give her a stuffed animal”. I didn’t even know that happened. It made my heart swell with pride to think that my little girl who was literally just learning to walk at that time, was able to empathize with another child and try to bring comfort to them. She really is a sweetie. I’m so glad we made the decision to use the day care center that we do. It’s so incredible that they work so hard to keep us in tune with what our kids are doing and learning on a day to day basis. So much of this is what I ache and long for when I’m at work instead of being with Naomi, but it’s a little easier to swallow knowing how well she is loved and cared for by all her teachers.