Amaya Update

Hello everyone. Long time no blog. What can I say, we've been keeping busy... especially miss Amaya. She's quite the busy girl. She's doing new things and learning new stuff every day it seems. So, here's a little of what she's been up to.



Amaya continues to enjoy Gymboree class. At first I wasn't sure it would really help her "learn and grow." I kept her in it just for the fun factor. But, her motor skills have improved immensely, so that has been fun to see. She can scale "the wall" with the best of them now. Which is a skill that has translated nicely to her home life. Amaya now climbs onto the dining room chairs and then onto the dining table. I walked out into the family room for a minute one day, only to walk back in the the kitchen area to see miss monkey sitting on the dining room table. She is also getting better and better at participating in the activities, although she still spends a good portion of the class "exploring" and doing her own thing. But, other kids do this, too, so it seems pretty typical of her age group. She always comes a running when it bubble, bubble time, though!!!

Amaya had her first (and last) Kindermusik class on Monday. She was not impressed. Too funny. She kept going to the door and saying bye-bye?, bye-bye?, as if begging me to go. And actually, I had to agree with her. It seems like most cities offer a Kindermusik class for toddlers, so I thought it would be neat, but I think the same class has been offered since the '70's. The music was really cheesey and dated...it sounded like I was listening to an old record back in my kindergarten class. Amaya prefers music with a beat, so she wasn't having it. So, she is now disenrolled and we are trying out Gymboree's music class tomorrow. We'll see if that will be "good enough" for my sweet little princess. Guess she's just use to jamming to hip hop music at home with mom, dad, and Barney.

For about one week I was able to keep Amaya's hair in pig tails. See photo above. Now's she's back to pulling out the holders, even the tiny silicone ones. Her hair is very fine like mine, so they slide out easily. But, her hair is getting long, so we shall see...we may end up breaking down and taking her for her second haircut. She just may stay with the bob look until she's a bit older. Meanwhile, she's got the shaggy look going on most of the day. She'll let me keep a barrette in it for about 20% of the time. Any pointers out there for keeping the little ones tresses tamed while growing out their hair?

O.K. What else? Amaya has started bringing her wipes and a diaper to us when she needs a diaper change now. Too funny. She's showing potty training readiness, but mommy's not quite ready yet. Where has the time gone?

Amaya adds new words to her vocabulary daily it seems. So fun....some of our current favorites are touchdown (sounds like bouchdown, but her t's are coming along), of course mommy and daddy, bunny, baby, side (she says this when she wants to go outside), bath, juice, light, plane and we we still love it when she days bubble and seriously (seriscy).

Amaya continues to be very affectionate, giving hugs and kisses readily. When the "I love you" song comes on on Barney, she comes a running from where ever she may be to dance to it and give a "great big hug and a kiss from me to you" on cue. Whenever we sing that song, even when Barney isn't on, she "go through the motions." So fun. She'll also randomly crawl up into Scott's or my laps and put her head on our shoulder and just hug and snuggle with us. We love that. She's such a sweetie.

She's also becoming quite the mommy! She loves playing mommy, but has abandoned her cabbage patch kids baby in order to devote all of her time to her pink bunny. She carries it where ever she goes and feeds, diapers, and rocks it like a baby. It truly is her baby. She even makes wah-wah noises at times, after which she'll feed or rock the bunny. So funny. And...it wears her cpk baby's clothes.

Amaya has also exercised her helpful and caring nature recently, showing she will be a great mommy someday, when baby Brooklyn was over for a visit. We were watching Brooklyn for her mommy and daddy (Mae and Brett), when she got a little fussy. I was rocking her a bit to calm her, when Amaya disappeared into the kitchen, only to return about 15 seconds later with Brooklyn's pacifier. First of all, Amaya had just gotten up for the day, being the teen sleeper that she is, so it's funny she even found the paci (it was on the dining room table). Secondly, I was impressed she brought it over, clearly knowing that it may help the baby. Then she went and found Brooklyn's blanket and brought it over. I never said a word...she did it all on her own. Amaya just loved having Brooklyn over and was even sooo quiet when Brooklyn was sleeping. This is quite amazing because Amaya is veeerrry vocal. After Brooklyn's nap, Amaya got sooo excited to go see the baby. She heard her stirring on the monitor, so she new the baby was waking up, but she wasn't sure where she was. When I took Amaya upstairs to get Brooklyn, she ran around looking for her. It was sooo funny. When she found her she was soooo happy. Brooklyn gets to come back and play on Friday and Amaya is soooo excited.

Amaya continues to enjoy the pool, but only on weekends when dad is home lately because mommy got a tattoo (actually two tattoos). I didn't realize I had to stay out of the water for 3-4 weeks. Oops. It was worth it, though. I love them. One is on my upper left back area and is S,A, and B all intertwined in a fancy design. It turned out very neat. The other is the Packers logo on my right ankle. I've wanted to do that for a long time, and with the whole Favre debacle, it was finally time to do it. I added Favre below the Packer G so he's forever a Packer to me. Smile, smile.

O.K. I think that's enough to make up for taking nearly a month off from blogging. Now I'll do another entry of photos, photos, photos.