Lots to catch up on....
Yes, I've been bad about updating this journal. Just too much going on, with the end of school and the holidays and all that.
Zoë is doing well, understanding a lot more these days. She even understands things like "Daddy's going in to the store, you stay here with Mama." Her speech is sometimes quite amusing, but understandable. She's also using other phrases very nicely, such as, "tasty orange juice," "zoe weet-bix" (indicating that she wanted WeetBix cereal for breakfast), "what are you doing?" (usually said when she's upset with something someone is doing), "give me that!", "go away!', "get out", etc.
Sometimes, she makes up complete sentences to express something, such as, "Don't step on a chair," to tell herself that it wasn't appropriate to get a chair and climb on it to reach something.
For Christimas, she really seemed to get it this year. She still hasn't quite worked out that she can't just open every present, as they're not all for her, but she understands about the decorations and she was saying "Merry Christmas," to visitors quite naturally and without prompting.
Christmas morning, her presents were on a chair in the family room, covered with a blanket (Miranda's were similarly covered, but in a different chair). Zoë went over to the one present that was visible and played with it a bit and then tried to sit on the chair. Doing so, she heard the crackle of paper underneath, and lifted the blanket to see what was there. She saw the presents and said, "Ah! Christmas!"
Yesterday, we went on a long day trip into the countryside. She was quite pleasant all day. We had lunch at a public picnic area in a park in a country town and Zoë kept remarking on the table (it's fun to eat outside, apparently), and was quite cooperative and nice.
The only time we had a problem with her was when we stopped at a little restaurant to have a drink and Zoë was expecting a full meal (despite the fact that she almost certainly wasn't hungry), because that's what we do when we go to a restaurant, at least in her mind. It took me a while to work out what was upsetting her, but I'm pretty sure that was it.
She also had an interesting time of it at an observation tower on top of a mountain. The steps going up were the kind that you can see through, and she got up to the first landing and got scared and wanted to come down. I didn't blame her, because I had the exact same reaction (I don't have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of ladders and open stairs and other things where you can see through the rungs or steps or whatever). Miranda happily went up the steps with her Dad, and Zoë and I went to a lookout area that didn't involve stairs.
Eventually, though, Zoë decided she wanted to go up (after all, her little sister had done it) and when Andrew came down with Miranda, Zoë went up. As before, she got to the first landing and wanted Andrew to carry her. He told her no, that he'd be right behind her but she had to go up the steps herself or they could go down. She did go up and was fairly relaxed on the observation deck (the "stairs" to the next level were more of a ladder, so Andrew and the kids didn't go up to the top), but she was still somewhat wary of getting to close to the edge (despite the safety fence). Still, she did pretty well for something that initially scared her (and which I never did get past).
Today she's a bit on the cranky side, probably because of two days of excitement with visitors, presents, trips to new places, etc. Can't really say I blame her, but I can say she's getting much, much better at handling excitement and new experiences, which is good.
So, Mewwy Kwusmus from Zoë, who, I'm sure would say it herself if she had the opportunity and thought of it at the time.
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