Shoshanna's Spring Break

Shoshanna had a fabulous time at Grammy & Grandpa's house for the first part of (mama and daddy's) spring break. She adored the cats; she'd squeal "Hiiiii!" every time she saw them. For their part, they tolerated the loud miniature human as long as she didn't accidentally step on their tails or pet them too enthusiastically. We went swimming, enjoyed the warmth, Shoshanna wrestled with Auntie Em.

The travel was nice and uneventful - our flight from BUF to ORD was delayed but we had that 3 hour layover, so that wasn't a problem. One set of hands to haul two people's worth of stuff, especially when part of that stuff is a carseat, is a pain, but I managed. Shoshanna did pretty well; when she got stir crazy, standing in the aisle was usually enough to appease her.

Today Shoshanna and I went to an SCA event, where she made many, amny friends and practiced her walking skills which are getting better by the minute, I swear it. Just today she started to be able to crouch down to pick up things that she's dropped and after we got home she was actually getting upright without pulling up on anything.

Welcome to ToddlerTown, Population Shoshanna

Ways to make Shoshanna very, very happy:

• Say, "Shoshanna, pick out a pair of pants to put on!" She'll crawl as fast as she can to her dresser, open then drawer, pull out the first clothes her little hands get to, and crawl as fast as she can to her little stepstool, climb up on it, and either hand you the clothes to put on her or try to put them on herself. This is extra-funny becasue she always tries to put body-clothes on her head. Sock and shoes she knows go on feet... everything else apparently goes on her head.
  
• Break out the crayons and paper.
  
• Ask "Where's Shoshanna's head?" and applaud excitedly when she smacks herself in the temples with both hands.
  

Ways to make Shoshanna very, very mad:

• Remove her from the stairs when she thinks climbing is the best thing to be doing.
  
• Try to put away the crayons (even if she's not using them anymore).
  
• Insist on changing her diaper before she gets dressed in the morning.
  

Shoshanna and I are off to Oklahoma tomorrow morning for 5 days - wish me luck with our three-hour layover in Chicago!

The budding artiste

On Monday I bought Shoshanna her very first box of Crayola crayons. She caught on to the idea of scribbling on paper really quickly and produced four original masterpieces in a relatively short time. (There are, of course, some pics of her in the act in the Shoshanna 2006 slideshow on FlickR.)

She LOVES to draw! We've only had to cut one session short due to attempted crayon-eating, and when she sees me getting out the paper and the box of crayons, she gets REALLY excited! It's amazing how quickly she's becoming much more dextrous with the process, as well - the early drawings have really faint lines, and now she's already figured out how to press harder to make darker lines, and she's experimenting with what happens when you push the crayon versus pulling it, and what happens when you push straight down on a crayon until it unbalances itself and goes skidding off in some direction or another.

Tonight, I also introduced her to the idea of the paper airplane. She thought that was pretty nifty, too, but maybe that was due to me excitedly saying "crash!" with every nosedive.

Speaking of getting better at doing things, the walking is also getting much, much better - she walked almost halfway across the long axis of our (fairly large) living room yesterday before she stepped on a toy and sat down.