I love you

I just heard Zoe coo-ing with her dolls, and telling them "I love you"
... so cute.



Summer has finally made it here, and Zoe has spent the better part of the last two days naked. Yesterday we went to Gonzales Beach... it is a fabulous beach we'd never been too.. I forgot to bring her swim suit and there was a dip in the beach which was full of water.. great for little ones like Zoe.



This morning, Zoe woke at 3am, and would not go back to sleep.. Bruce took the first shift, watching Dora until 5am, brought her to me, and she would not go back to sleep... at 8am we finally went back to her room, slept for an hour.. then I could tell she was starving.. made pancakes. She has not napped either (except the 10 minutes in the stroller). I think it is because it is so warm in the house.

[INSERTING text I put on the wrong blog!]
June 30th, 2008:
Today I bought Zoe a bunch of things, including a swimming tool and Diego legos...
It includes a car, Diego, baby jaguar, and a laptop! I have great video of her playing with them.. to be posted.

Auntie Rachel also brought legos (unplanned by either of us).. two sets of Dora legos, with Benny, a bed, a chair.


Also,

trip to Chicago

I forgot to mention our trip to Chicago... we stayed with Lissa, Dane, Jack (6) and Sidra (2). Sidra is 9 months older than Zoe... they were worried about how Sidra would feel about sharing her toys, but really there was very little bad reactions to sharing.. they'd hand off toys, switch, etc. It worked really well. For Zoe the trip was like a very long vacation inside a toy store... so many new things.. she never grew bored; I'm fairly sure she played with almost every toy she saw.


She also played with Claudia (almost 3?) and Celeste (6).. she loved playing with their bubble machine.. she would put her mouth up to the bubbles... oh dear.. I have pictures... it was hard to talk her out of eating them.

Here she is sitting next to Sidra, popping bubbles.



Zoe took regular naps (even during Jack's b-day party.. with 12 kids screaming near the window)
and went to bed around her normal bed time PST.

so smart...

Zoe continually surprises us...

last night she picked up the book "Opposites" by Sandra Boynton to read.. and started to read it to us.. she can read the whole thing through.. we will try to record it. It has "Big" "small" "short" "tall" "weak" "strong" "right" "wrong"... "wet" "dry"... etc.

At the grocery store this morning we were practicing counting.. I say "one", she says "two".... etc.. or she says "one", I say "two"... she can count all the way to 13 in English and 10 in Spanish.

We are now working on the alphabet.

shoaw-shoaw

Zoe has taken to jumping in the shower with me in the morning.. she calls it the shoaw-shoaw (really hard to spell it phonetically, to capture how she says it). She stands under the spout and everything.. doesn't mind the water in her face.. loves it..

binky! and Potty! videos

Zoe was feeling kind of chatty this one day.. the same day as "row, row, row you kitty"... in this video she was doing her yoga (downward-dog ) and I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was looking for her binky.

the other one is her hanging out on her potty, which she just uses as a chair.. we aren't potty training yet.

the things she says

Zoe has a few phrases that come up often:

"Knock, Knock, Home, Home" (as in "knock, knock, anyone home?")

"I know, I know" (it what I saw to her when she gets hurt)

"I'm coming..."

"Bye, Bye, See you Soon"

"Mama home soon?"
"Dada home soon?"

"hug kitties"

"oh honey"
"Oh punkin"

"Go diego Go"

"I need..."
"a hug"
"a nap"
"Do-do" (Dora)
"booty" (loves Veggie Booty Snack)
"a binky"

row, row, row your cat

Zoe was holding Midnight this morning, while sitting on the floor, and singing "Row, Row, Row your boat"... I recorded it.. but by the time I captured it, it was not nearly as loud as it was before...

Zoe's first painting

I finally got around to painting the wood knobs I bought for Zoe's room (to hang jackets on).. it was fun to do some "art work".  On Saturday morning, Zoe caught me touching them up.. I decided to go ahead and let her play with some paint.  I gave her a sponge brush and a few drips of paint on a thin 8x8 sheet of cardboard.. she did her first painting.  I'll post a picture soon.

painted toes!

I was painting my toe nails as Zoe was bathing.. she was very intrigued by it, and wanted to get out of the bath so she could get her nails done.  Her bath was cute short on her wishes. Surprisingly, she held very still... it was her first time getting all of her nails painted.. her toes are red, her fingernails light pink.  This morning she got up and was so excited "Mommy painted toes".  I asked her what color they were, she says "wed".. so cute.

She's been able to say black, and blue for a while now, now knows red and is starting to catch on to green and white.

weekend

We've had a really nice weekend.. went to the "Oak Bay Tea Party" which consists of parades, midway, beach, food,  Women's Nail Driving contest... really the only parts we made it too were the beach and nail contest (I lost).  Zoe's nap schedule was off, so we missed the parade.

Today was low key.. dropped "Uncle Chris" off at the airport, went to Island View Park until we were frozen (its 53 deg. F today)... then back to the house for Zoe's nap.  We set up the sandbox on the deck, so Zoe can play there, while we fix food or whenever.. turns out that "play sand" is incredibly dusty, dirty stuff...

Tonight after dinner, Zoe was just playing with her Dora legos, I heard her counting.. in Spanish!  she's pretty good.. got about half of them when we went through it with her.. I kept hearing "uno, threzz, see-ez, ocho"... I'd never practiced with her before..

"Amy, we have a little situation here..."

Anna called this morning: "Amy, we have a little situation here..."
my heart is starting to beat faster...
"Zoe has locked herself in your room."
now I'm trying not to laugh... ;)
I tell Anna to use the small implement that Bruce uses to get into the room when I lock Zoe and myself in there while I'm showering.. it worked, problem solved.

Then I noticed the first call from her I missed (at 11am), the second came at 11:55am, I heard that one... oh dear.. poor Anna.. I can just imagine her sitting at the door, talking to Zoe, singing to her, trying to get her to unlock the door; and I'm sure Zoe was on the other side laughing herself silly.

Zoe's favorite things

Zoe loves, loves, loves raw red peppers.. eats them like an apple.. nary is the time I got to the store that she doesn't need a red pepper (and I must remember to take her shirt off when she eats them.. they stain clothes like crazy).

She also loves to hang like a monkey.. last night when trying to get her to be (at 10pm!.. started at 8:30)... she was hanging on our pedestle sink, saying "I'm swinging".. of course, when the camera showed up, it was all "Cheese" and "A camera".. and it was hard to capture the swinging.. I did get a second of it.. to be posted if I can ever figure out what the heck is wrong with our internet signal (I think it is the PCs in the house hogging the bandwidth (Rachel and Chris!)).

things overheard

I said a few things to Zoe yesterday that my sister overheard when I was on the phone with her:

"No, Zoe, you can not put the kitten in the jar."

"No, Zoe, you can not sit on Molly."

Zoe loves her kittens, all three of them. I was really worried about her and the new kittens (here on called Midnight and Cowboy or as Zoe calls them "Night-Night" and "Cowbee").. but Zoe is learning.. she is getting better about being around them.. for the most part.