Monday, August 9, 2010

It's time to PRETEND!

Hello it's been longer than usual but I'm here ready for more blogging! It's been 3 months now that Zaleeya has been in daycare. She has now kinda of figured out the schedule so she does protest every morning, but we know she really enjoys her days and she's learning so much, so we take it as simple 2 year old rebellion. I'm really happy with my current job and feel challenged and enjoying the work/mom routine.

Zaleeya is fast approaching her 3rd birthday (3 weeks!) so we also attribute a LOT of new tantrum and control behaviors to this. Boy is she tough sometimes! Lately when we try to transition to nighttime, or naptime or clean up time, it's "no no no only in 2 minutes!". Sigh. We've tried reward charts and counting to 3 etc etc and all variations seem to work somtimes, but of course she also ends up in good old fashioned time out.

But with these new struggles come some cool new talking and some wonderful pretending. She is SUPER into Aurora (sleeping beauty) and often tells people her name is Aurora if they ask. She will serve up tons of food in her kitchen, carry "pretend" pink candy in her hand, take you on a ride in her imaginary choo choo train, offer to take you for a ride in her light pink car so you can go "golf". It's amazing what she comes up with and how dedicated to the things that she deems her "favorite" (like the number 7 and the color PINK!).


We had a great 4th of July this year with a ride through the children's parade and took a few trips to Disneyland. So far we've seen Ariel, Jasmine and Belle but need to make it back soon to see the infamous Aurora. I'm telling you it's kinda crazy... she hasn't
even see the movie but we just started reading the book and she hides hen the evil fairy Malificent shows up. She is starting to develop some normal "fears" of evil characters and "monsters" lurking in dark rooms.

As always, it continues to be an adventure but we are reminded daily how lucky we are when we see how well she continues to adjust.