Humor me with a few more...

I knew I'd forget something in the last post. I want to add it here just for my own memory.

I love to see Willa working to figure out the world. She loves asking, "What's the smell?" - sometimes it's June's poopy diaper, sometimes it's toothpaste when she kisses Ryan good-bye to work. She asks about sounds too, even if she knows what it is. She likes the pleasure of asking and having me repeat an expected answer. Maybe it's a little comforting to know that the world is starting to make sense.

She likes this Fisher-Price Christmas book and we read it OFTEN. She kept pointing the the earmuffs on the kids and asked what they were. I explained that they were called earmuffs and that they keep ears warm when it is cold. A few weeks later, I got out her panda bear headphones for our trip to California. She hasn't seen them in a while and when I got them out she immediately called them her earmuffs. I feel like I get to catch glimpses of her little mind trying to logically figure names of things and to apply what she is learning to the real world. I haven't had the heart to correct her on the "earmuffs" versus "earphones" it's just so sweet.

A few times Ryan and I will say something and she'll say, "Huh?" We will repeat it a few times and finally she will say, "I don't know dat word means." I love that she can pinpoint and then articulate what she is not understanding. It's not the whole sentence, it's a new vocabulary word.

Today was our third swim lesson at our new swim place. It's an amazing place and the teachers are first rate but she cried through the first two lessons even though she is pretty comfortable in the water and was already doing a lot of what they were teaching. Finally, today I prepped her for a long time and threatened that she wouldn't get ice cream if she cried (there is a McDonalds in the same parking center, so I have been driving through and getting her a cone on the way home to sweeten the trauma of it all). She was almost inconsolably crying while we got her ready at home -hyperventilating, etc. We sang Primary songs, we talked about happy memories, we talked about what was scaring her, but still she cried and even asked for a hug.

We got to lessons and she cried as we walked in and as the lesson started, but finally she started to relax. By the end of the lesson she was finally smiling the first smiles of the entire three lessons. She couldn't stop talking about it all the way home and during lunch. It's interesting to see my cautious girl take on the big world and I'm so happy when she is able to process it all and have positive experiences.