Month: April 2008

One thing that is certain about Taylor is that nothing gets past her. Last week I was cleaning the house and she asked me, “Who’s coming over?” Am I really that transparent? Is it true that the only time I clean is when people are coming over? Probably not entirely, but maybe a little bit. I was feeling kind of bad about it until I relayed the story to a friend of mine. She confessed that when she brought out her vacuum cleaner, her son asked, “What’s that?” Hurray for friends who make me feel better about my slovenly ways!

Taylor’s been drawing up a storm lately and she drew this picture of me…on what must have been a really bad hair day:


T.J. and dad, clowning around:

This weekend we went to the Little Farm in Berkeley, where Taylor fed the goats and sheep. The weather was amazing and it was a really nice, relaxing day.

As Taylor nears the ripe old age of three, I’m noticing that the rules are changing all over again. She’s evolving rapidly and even though I try to stay one step ahead, I find that I seem to be behind the curve more often than not. Her activity level has increased dramatically and a certain amount of fearlessness comes with it. My daughter who used to be glued to my leg most of the time is now running everywhere – and she’s not looking back. Climbing and jumping are favorite activities and she tends to be more reckless than she ever was. She really enjoys knocking things over, kicking things and tearing things apart. I don’t think that she means to be destructive, it’s just that curiosity wins out over caution. Interestingly, her creativity level is at an all-time high. She draws wonderful pictures with shapes that are becoming fairly recognizable (bugs and people mostly) and she makes up the most involved stories. Her imagination is so active that we really need very few toys to keep her entertained. One of her favorite games is making a pretend “foozy” (smoothie) and she’ll narrate an entire scenario of going to the store, shopping for the ingredients, bringing them home and putting them in the blender to make the foozy. She is very precise about following the steps exactly, even insisting that we take the lid off of our make-believe blender before we put in the ingredients. It’s pretty amazing the level of detail that she remembers. We’re just looking forward to the day when she can put those words into action and start making foozies for mom and dad!

Taylor has a new hobby…bug catching. Some friends gave her a butterfly net, a plastic tube with a magnifying glass and a “bug house”, which is a little wooden box with wire mesh sides for observing them. We have a lot of bugs around our home and T.J. had already discovered rolly-polly bugs, so she was happy to have actual equipment for bug catching. She really enjoys strolling around the backyard looking for them, although it seems that they are easier to find when you’re NOT looking. With the bug tube came a pamphlet that has pictures of several species (spiders, moths, ants, etc.) and Taylor likes to make sure that she brings her list with her so that she can check off each bug when she finds them. She has absolutely no fear of them, so I sometimes have to catch myself from jumping when I hear her say, “Look, mommy, look!” and I turn around to see her holding a huge praying mantis or some other critter in her hand.

The bug lady at work:

This week T.J. pulled off a big milestone that totally surprised us…she wrote her own name! It was crude, but still pretty legible.

Here she is with her handiwork: