Monday, January 25, 2010

A night away, a party, and coloring!

No pictures from this last Friday night-Saturday, but it was a very momentous occasion. I attended the River Rock Women's Retreat, and it was my first night away from Judith! I wrote out very detailed instructions for Lance - just in case there was any part of her routine that he didn't know, and I left at about 2:00 p.m. on Friday. And (of course) they were both just fine. Apparently Judith asked for me a couple times ("mama?") and even went and patted the garage door once, in case I was out there. But otherwise she was just content with Lance. She slept fine on Friday night, ate well, and went down for her afternoon nap. And I had a great time at the retreat.

Saturday's picture is from Grandpa Tim's 70th birthday party. Here's Judith helping to unwrap the afghan that I made. She was fascinated by all the animals on the paper, but she obeyed "do not open" instructions. She also had a great time playing with all the cousins and aunts and uncles. (She didn't say "Happy Birthday" though.)

Sunday's picture turned out too blurry, but the anecdote that goes along with it is worth telling anyway. There is a small spot of chocolate on the wall near our dining room table that got there sometime during my Holiday candy frenzy, and has yet to be washed off. On Sunday night Judith noticed it (again), and also found one of my Pampered Chef nylon scrapers. I guess she's seen me use the scraper to clean off a cupboard door or to scrape tempered chocolate off the table, because she kept saying "caca" (chocolate) and rubbing at the spot with the scraper! Apparently my cleaning isn't quite up to her standards. (yes, I cleaned the spot off this morning.)

On Sunday night she also said what we have decided is her first complete sentence. She sat down on one of her stools (there are two next to each other), patted the other, and said "Nay Nay, Sit!" She's patted the stool before and said "sit" but never put it together with someone's name. And this morning she was going around the table where we sat for Life Group last night and patting each chair to tell me where Amanda (Dama), Nate (Nay Nay) and Daddy were sitting.

This morning I was working on stuff in the kitchen and searching for something to entertain Judith. I got out one of the pieces of butcher paper that came as packaging in a box, and put it on the top of one my big rubbermaid containers. Then I got out one crayon, and demonstrated. Judith liked the idea very much, except she was constantly wanting a different color. So I eventually gave her the box, which she found much more intriguing than the actual coloring process. She spent a good hour, at least, first coloring and then taking crayons in and out of the box. I also drew her some flowers and stars, which was perhaps a mistake because she no longer wanted to color on her own, but only wanted me to draw more "fowrs" and "tars".