Toddler Beach -- Day 838

It is actually a bit difficult to even know where to start this post as so much happened during our trip to Houston for Thanksgiving. The bad thing when this happens is that in all likelihood I will just forget to tell some good Anna stories. That's how it goes I guess. Sorry Grandparents.

The most eventful time was when Anna went to the beach for the first time. Anna absolutely loved it. It was an endless sand box with water and shells. I actually have some video that I will post this week some time.

Now you would think that I would have a lot of stories from this episode, but strangely I do not. I guess she was just so enamored with the water and beach that she was literally bouncing from one thing to another and running around. She was very, very busy. It was like she didn't know what to do because there was so much fun to be had, and this was really fun to watch. It is just hard to describe.

There was a lot of scooping sand, adorning sand heaps with shells, letting the water wash up on her feet and obviously getting sand in her diaper. (I will refrain from posting the picture of her plumber butt and a big pile of sand next to it.) I think the high point was just seeing her try to understand the feeling of wet sand in between her toes. There was that first minute or two where it looked like she was learning to walk again. But instead of balance as the main issue, it was sensory 'strangeness' that was new. Do you curl your toes and dig them in? Do you run or tip toe? Do you kick or jump? There were no rules and she was trying to figure it [wet sand] out.

The reason we were at the beach was we spent Thanksgiving outside of Galveston at Kerry's Aunt and Uncle's beach house (Elizabeth and Mike). They had a great place where Anna had plenty of opportunities to watch barges go by, and we were just a short ride away from the beach. They also had porches, dogs, toys, and an enormous sectional couch fit for rolling around.

Anna also had the opportunity to entertain guests during Charles and Judy's 40th wedding anniversary party. Anna started off jumping, then proceeded to running and jumping, took a break with some legos, then returned to jumping and running again. After everything was done and we were putting her to bed Anna summarized it best. She said, "Anna ran back and forth and jumped a lot." Yep, that about says it, and I will add that she burned a HUGE amount of energy. I personally don't know how she was still standing at the end of it all. It was literally 4+ hours of jumping and running. I know that I couldn't do that.

The airplane trip there and back made quite an impression on Anna, and suffice it to say, her identity has changed once again (for those keeping track), but this time to a pilot. Unfortunately, Anna had a cold so during the landings her ears were hurting quite a bit. During that time, she would make her Nya-Nya kiss each one of her ears repeatedly. It was so sad just seeing her hold her head crying and saying that her ears hurt. But then when we landed, she just switches off and says, "Anna's ears don't hurt anymore." Smiles from all.

When we boarded our flight back to DC, the stewardesses found out that Anna was a 'pilot' (remember this is her new identity), so they let her into the cockpit and she got to sit on one of the pilot chairs. (Please note that I have never done this.) She then tried to buckle herself in but the pilot seat belts are...well, let's say a bit more complex than the passenger ones, so she informed the pilots that her belt was broken. One of the pilots politely told her that they would have to call to get it fixed. Upon leaving the plane, they also gave her some pilot wings. Again, this has never happened to me.

Let's see, what are some other stories...oh yeah, before we left for Texas when I took her to the Natural History Museum, one of the elevator attendants who hands out stickers to kids gave Anna one. This in itself isn't a big deal, but after eating, we had to once again use the elevator to go up, so I told Anna to tell the elevator attendant thank you and tell him that you like him very much. Well, it was a different attendant who actually had no interest in handing out stickers to kids, but that didn't stop Anna. She did happen to notice that it wasn't the same man, which threw her off a bit in the beginning, so she kind of messed up her lines. Instead of 'thank you' she just skipped to a very sincere, "I love you." Well, after that, he told her that he also loved her then scrambled into action and rounded up two stickers for her.

Anna has also started to absorb holiday characters with amazing speed. After hearing the story of the pilgrims one time at her day school, she was pilgrim this and pilgrim that all week long. She told us about the rock, the Indians, and the Mayflower. Now she understands Santa Clause and Rudolph the red-nose reindeer. I guess this reflects a broader language ability that she has picked up in the last couple of months. She has always been good verbally, but she has really turned a corner and started prancing with it in the last couple of months.

I can't really cite any examples, but just to give some idea: the other morning when I went to get her out of bed I asked her if she had been up for a while. She said, "Yes," so I asked her what she was doing. Anna then gives a grammatically perfect complex sentence for an answer: "I was hugging the Nya-Nyas, and then when I was done I started kissing them."

Even the weekend before last when Kerry and I walked near to Anna's school (Anna was in her stroller), she informed her Mommy that "Anna's school is over there back behind that." The 'that' was a hospital that was standing between us and Anna' school. Anyhow, it surprised me that she had full capacity to use three sets of prepositions in one construction in a way to say exactly where the school was. She could have stopped at "over there" or "behind that," but instead she just rattled off a precision description.

Ok, so maybe I am goint into too much detail. If you haven't had a kid, this may mean nothing, and for those that do have kids, this may be fairly routine. Anyhow, the point is that Anna is really absorbing language now. The other day I taught her that in stead of saying 'no' she should say, "I'd rather not." It took 10 seconds, and now her way of saying 'no' has a very English ring to it. She's a sponge.

Well, I think I will end this now. I will probably remember some other things to talk about during the week, so I apologize for any posts that may jump around too much in a sort of schizophrenic ramble. I just know that if I try to compose the posts too much, in the end I will end up posting less.