Petra's developmental milestones

Petra has crossed a few major developmental milestones in the last month.

She has started putting together two word phrases like -
Daddy mow.
Baby doll.

She has started using names consistently -
mommy
mama - grandma
daddy
papa - grandpa
Pau
Djedja - Julia

She has moved from her crib to a toddler bed. I was assured that she understood she was supposed to stay in bed when I caught her leaping back onto it as I opened the door to check her.

She is starting to have fun in the pool. Miss Beth's big pool is still a little intimidating, but the last time I took her in it she started playing with the floaty fish. She can wade around in our kiddie pool at home.

She has started telling us when her diaper is "stinky." This is huge.

My little Rose is five!

We celebrated Julia's birthday a week ago. We invited some of her school friends over for a birthday party Friday night. Julia was so excited, and I was so anxious that she not be disappointed. Here are how things fell out, and what I learned.

We only had two guests be able to come.
My plans for the children to do water activities were dashed by the chilly weather.
My plans for the children to stay outside were dashed by rainy weather.
For a craft we made 3 Bears Bread. I learned (or verified) that the appearance of the final product is not nearly as important as the fun of the hands-on activity.
We had a scavenger hunt. It mostly consisted of Paul reading the clues and shouting where to go next while the younger children chatted and amiably jogged along behind him. And that was the way they liked it.
We had a pinata. Each of the children had a few turns hitting it, with Steve keeping Paul from really beating it. Before their attention span waned completely, Steve gave Paul permission to have at it. And that was the way they liked it.

So even though nothing went the way I had originally envisioned it, the children still had a blast.

Saturday morning we drove up to my folks house. We had another birthday celebration with my parents and grandparents. Paul and Julia were awed to learn that their great grandparents used to be a BANKER and a FIRST GRADE TEACHER. Their response was something like - Wow, we know what those jobs are! That is so amazing.

And if that weren't enough celebrating, we had a family party with Steve's parents Monday night.

One of Julia's treasured gifts were a pair of Twinkle Toe shoes. They are sparkly, gaudy, ruffled and just to Julia's tastes. They didn't arrive in the mail until Tuesday. So my girl had 4 days of receiving gifts, only skipping her actual birth-day.

She celebrated her five-ness Monday morning by making her breakfast all by herself. She got her bagel, toasted it and buttered it.

I'm so proud of my smart, sparkly, imaginative, big girl!