New pictures!
Well, after a series of hard drive failures, server upgrades, and reinstallation of various things (including having to fix the script that runs the photo gallery), I finally got new pictures of Zoë online! I am now caught up with all the pictures I have of her to share, up to and including her birthday. Silly me, I forgot to take the camera to the annual Bromage Christmas party, but I did take some pictures of her last day of kindy (the Christmas party), and I'll get those uploaded whenever I next take pictures off the camera (probably after Christmas).
So, Nanna and Grandpop, I apologize for the delay. (I'll get Miranda's pictures online tomorrow, most likely; there are new pictures in the "Miscellaneous" category with both girls, however.)
Kindy and suchlike
Tuesday was the final day of kindy (pre-school). They had a visit from Santa (only in Australia would Santa turn up wearing red cotton and sandals), and Zoë wasn't too impressed with that. She ate a lot of junk food (particularly jelly snakes), and was quite put out about the normal routine being changed. Andrew and I were there along with Miranda, partly for the concert (the little kids sang and did hand motions and such), and partly as "parent on duty", so we tried to steer Zoë in the right direction.
Wednesday she wasn't feeling well, and Thursday she threw up for no reason that I could see. It was very hot Wednesday, and she ate a lot of junk the day before, so maybe it was just a combination of things. She's feeling better today, got her appetite back and such. Of course, it helps that it's much cooler, as well.
Zoë will definitely be repeating 3-year-old kindy again next year, as well as having her normal speech therapy (probably fortnightly) and weekly early intervention playgroup. She's been making very good progress this year, so I think that by the end of next year, she'll be ready to go ahead to the 4-year-old classes.
She's also learning her letters surprisingly well. Her Dad plays "letters" with her every evening for a little while, drawing letters on her magnetic drawing board and having her name them. She can always spell her name now, and recognizes several other letters and numbers spontaneously!
Zed-Oh-Eee. Zoë!
Leave it alone!
Last night, Zoe was playing with something in a cute way, and her Dad wanted to see the toy she had. He went over to get it to look at it, and she put up a huge stink about it. She told him, and I quote, "Leave it alone!"
I guess it's sinking in slowly, eh?
Letters and Numerals
Zoë has been learning numbers and letters. Her dad sits down with her and draws a numeral or a letter and then she says what it is. So far she can only do a few of them, her favorites being O, U, Z, 7, 8, and 4, all pretty distinctive. She'll even have a go at drawing some of them (usually O or U), which is pretty good. Fortunately her name is quite short, so we might be able to get her to the point where she can write it by herself soon.
Conversations
Yesterday, Zoë came up to me and asked to use the potty, and the proceeded to use it. I was SO proud of her! Today she asked to go potty, but she had already started to go in her pants (not an unusual event). The good thing is that she IS asking to go, and she does seem to understand. She just doesn't always ask in time.
Last night I went in to run a bath for the kids and Zoë went up to her Dad while I was out of the room and told him she had "pee pee pants". He said, "Do you want clean pants?" and she said, "Stinky." He asked her again and she said, "Pants," a couple of times. She didn't seem to understand the question, but she was clear in what she was telling him, and in the fact that she knew she had wet pants.
He finally asked her, "What do you want?" and she said, "A DDD" (DVD). He said, "How about a bath?" and she said, "All clean. DDD." He finally suggested that they get the pee pee pants off of her, then have a bath, then watch a DVD. I don't know how much of it she understood, language-wise, but she obviously understood the gist of it, because she cooperated with him, and even sang a little song she made up about pee pee pants (hey, any kind of talk is good talk as far as we're concerned!).
I notice that lately she's been saying, "Do you want," (i.e., "what do you want") when she wants something. She came up to me just now and said that to me. I told her to wait (because she's just had something to eat and I know she was just wanting something nibbly), and she got quite annoyed, but when I came back later to ask her what she wanted, she was cooperative. (I'm trying to teach her what "wait" or "just a minute" means.)
Zoë's lately been very into talking about cows and cats and what they say. Cows say "Moo" and cats say "eeeoww". She also insists that a pig is a cow (she always calls a pig "cow"). I'm not sure, though, if she really thinks a pig is a cow or if it's a pre-shcooler type joke, based on the way she says it and the twinkle in her eye when she does...
|