So the older Piper gets, and the more she can talk and do, the more fun we continue to have with exploring and trying new things and experiences. So here's a couple of our recent experiences:
We recently tried out one of the other local parks that's right near the kids' school. It has a great playground and lots of green space. Piper had so much fun on it and enjoyed the other kids she met there. She's also big enough now that she can climb up onto the bigger playgrounds and really play on just about everything out there. On the way home we were talking about the park and I asked her what her favorite part was and she said, "I play with my friends." Yes, our little social butterfly loves to mingle with other kids and thus far, can't say she's met a stranger.
Last weekend we had a rainy Saturday and everyone was getting a bit stir-crazy. So a little outing seemed like the thing to do. Since we headed out for ice cream. On our way home, she told me, "Mommy, dat a good nack at dat resraunt".
Later bedtimes...our little miss, from the time we brought her home from the hospital, has been quite the sleeper. Her first year of life, she averaged sleeping about 13 hours a night! This often translated into her being ready to go to bed around 5pm, sometimes earlier and sleeping all the way through until we got her up the next morning around 6 or 6:30am. Her early bedtime has persisted, as she just seemed to need the sleep and when we'd selfishly try keep her up to be able to spend more time with her at night, it often didn't work so well for her. Well lately, she's had several times where she's stayed up later and has done great. And on normal nights at home, it's been taking her longer to fall asleep and she'd been waking up extra early in the morning. So we decided to try letting her stay up longer at night...so far, so good! And, my goodness, that extra hour we get with her at night is wonderful! During the week, we have more time to go outside at night and build sandcastles, go for walks, pick flowers, etc. or stay inside and color, read books, play toys, etc. It also gives her time with Ger and I after Boone goes to bed and I'm glad she gets the one-on-one time with us, not to mention we enjoy it as well.
Open bedroom door...at night now when Piper goes to bed, she's started asking for us to leave the door open. Part of this we think stems from her getting a little scared at night (we also put in a nightlight for her) and part from her budding independence. Since she moved to a big girl bed, we keep a stool at the foot of her bed that she uses to get up into bed at night. But until recently, she's never shown any interest to use it to get down in the morning when she wakes up and instead opts to call for us when she wakes up. This morning, I could hear her over the monitor saying, "Mommy, Daddy, I take a good nap!", so I headed into her bedroom to get her and ended up almost bumping into her into her in the hallway. She was on her way into get us! She looked so grown up and so little all at the same time.
Playground/dinner time fun...we tried out Burger King this week for dinner, mostly to let Piper play on the indoor playground. It's a good compromise for having dinner and letting the 2-year old in her play at the same time And the mommy in me is glad that they offer healthier sides with their happy meals and have milk on the menu. But, I digress...their indoor playground looked much like the cage we used to have for our pet hamster, a series of enclosed tunnels that led to slides on either end. Piper wasn't tall enough to climb up to get into the playground, but within minutes of playing on the bottom part of the slide, figured out how to climb up the inside of the slide to get to the top and the rest of the playground. There was another little girl there that was older than her, who went up with her and they had a great time playing, and occasionally coming down for a bite or two of dinner. On our way to the car she said, "What the name of dat resraunt is?" She practiced saying it several time on the way home, I think she wanted to be sure she could remember it, to be sure she could ask to go back again.
We put a diaper back on for her nap on Saturday, and when she got up she didn't want to put the underwear back on. So she kept the diaper on. Sunday, after church, she was ready to try again and wore them for the rest of the day. And she also went to school in them today (along with the required 4 changes of clothes-hee, hee!) and was so excited. She couldn't wait to get there and show Mrs. Theresa and Ms. Melinda her "pincess unner-wear".
