Sing A-Long

Today we went to a toddler sing-along! It was at our local indoor playground, and was great fun. We've been going to the park every day- the weather is just gorgeous. I also brought out the jogging stroller, and we've been jogging around the neighborhood. Paprika seems to like it and even asks "go stroller?" when we go down to the garage.

I'm hard at work getting Paprika on a more reasonable schedule. She is very committed to her 3am bedtime, and her 3pm wake-up time. This morning I got her up early (9:30am), but she wouldn't nap- so now it's 7:30pm and I'm about to put her down to sleep. But, she'll probably wake up in three hours and want to party til 5 a.m. Phew! I hope she sleeps all night. She definitely needs it. :-)

The Next Dimension Is Vertical

Paprika has discovered the power of climbing. She wants to climb on everything and has discovered that she can bring a chair over to her desired peak and use it as a stepping stool to get where she wants to go. She wants to stand on the dining room table, ontop of the kitchen and bathroom counters, and climb the railing on the stairs. Nothing is insurmountable with a little ingenuity!

Leap Day!

Over the past few days, Paprika has started saying the most wonderful sentence. She says, "I love you soooo much!" Sometimes she forgets a word or two and it comes out, "I love much!" or "I love so much!" or just "Love Much!" It's a pretty incredible feeling no matter how she says it. Even if she is just imitating what I say to her a million times a day, I don't care. It's still wonderful.

Paprika is also VERY interested in climbing, and fitting herself into any and every nook she can find in our house. You can see that she really enjoys crawling into the kitchen cupboards!

Paprika is pretty girly. She loves rummaging through my purse, putting on chapstick or lipstick, combing her hair, and wearing my shoes. She likes to use my make-up brushes to put make-up on herself, me, her Pooh, Daddy, and anyone else she can find. She will walk up to you with a make-up brush and say "Make-up? Make-up?" before she attacks you with the brush. She has recently discovered Disney Princesses and now everytime she sees something with a Disney Princess on it, she exclaims "Princess! Princess! Princess!" It sort of sounds like Printhess, but we both know what she's saying. We have the Disney Princess Sing-Along DVD, which has a few of the songs from Disney movies, and watching it is Paprika's very favorite thing to do- she will sit mesmerized by it and hum the songs.

She has also started singing "Old MacDonald's Farm." The song usually sounds like this "Lalalalalala...sheep...baa...eieio. Lalalalala...puppy...woof...eieio. Lalalalala...duck...quack...eieio." She loves singing and dancing, and will twirl herself around the living room until she's dizzy.

Today we went to the park, and again she wanted to explore the men's bathroom. She also wanted to run up to the man mowing the lawn and figure out how the lawnmower worked. She is very independent and loves to run off in her own direction. There really is no containing her, or coercing her to do anything that she doesn't want to do. That, too, sounds familiar! :-)

We measured Paprika last night and she's now 32 inches and about 28 or 29 pounds. She's grown about an inch in the past two months. There was another little girl at the park today Paprika's age, and Paprika was so much taller than her- in all honesty, Paprika looked like a giant next to her! I'm curious to see where Paprika is on the growth curve when we go in for her next check-up.

Little Explorer

Paprika I went to the park yesterday and today, and both days she was completely uninterested in the playground. Instead, she wanted to explore the woods around the park, take in the war memorial, and spend lots of time checking out the bathrooms! Even though the park was teeming with toddlers, and yesterday Elizabeth and Isabella went to the park with us, Paprika had her own agenda. Yesterday she kept taking off, and at one point I got a little frustrated, so I said, "Okay, Paprika. See you later. Bye, bye," and I started walking away. She yelled after me, "Bye bye, Mama!" and walked off in the opposite direction. I guess reverse psychology doesn't work on her!

Today she was fascinated with the men's room and all she wanted to do was touch the men's urinals! It was a gorgeous day, but she wanted to go inside the men's restroom at the park (there aren't any doors to the restroom), and touch the urinals. I tried everything to get her to stay away, but she would have a big meltdown whenever I took her elsewhere, and would just keep running back to the bathroom! Hopefully she got it out of her system. I don't know if we can keep going to that park if all she's going to do while we're there is explore the men's room!

When I finally got her to leave the restroom, she went over to the war memorial and had a wonderful time exploring every inch of it. She was particularly fascinated with the "tin man" (like the Wizard of Oz). She gave him a kiss on his forehead, which was pretty sweet! She also pointed out his hands, hair, eyes, ears, nose, and his shoes!

The Zoo!

Today was a perfect day for the zoo. Mr. Mustard had the day off work, it was gorgeous, sunny, and 75 degrees, and it was a Monday, so hardly anyone was there! Perfection!

We saw the new gorilla exhibit, which was phenomenal. They've been working on it for years, and it's finally done! Paprika was very excited to see the "monkeys" and had a great time running around pointing them out. We also say the hippos (which Paprika pronounces "Heeeepos"), zebras, lions, ducks, peacocks, flamingos, tigers, and a whole bunch of other animals. The male lion roared at the top of his lungs for about five minutes while we were watching him. The roaring really fascinated Paprika- it didn't scare her- she was just very interested in what he was trying to say. The tigers had two baby cubs with them, and they were having a ball playing and wrestling eachother. It was too cute for words!

Paprika wanted to walk the entire length of the zoo. The LA Zoo is on the side of a steep hill, but that didn't seem to deter Paprika. She wants nothing to do with the stroller and would just prefer to walk herself, thank you very much!

The zoo just launched a wonderful outdoor playground for kids, so we had a lot of fun playing there when we were done visiting the animals. Paprika had a great time running around with Mr. Mustard on the playground equipment. She's a bit aprehensive about the slides right now- she refuses to go down them now when just a few weeks ago it was her favorite thing to do!

Over the weekend, we just relaxed around the house and tried to stay dry- it's been raining a bit. We watched the Academy Awards last night, which was great fun. Paprika actually took a nap for the first three hours of it- I put her down for a nap right as the show was coming on, and she woke up right before they announced Best Director. So, she watched a little red carpet with me and then got to see the end of the show. I'm being pretty strict about her wake-up time now, which is helping her move towards and earlier schedule. If I let her, she would really sleep all day long- and then we'd miss out on fun days like today at the zoo!