Not quite a year

I hadn't realized exactly how long it had been since I'd done any blogging. I've missed recording almost a whole year of my little girl growing up. Some catching up is in order!

A-chan is still in Tae Kwon Do and loving it. She had three yellow stripes on her white belt and is looking forward to testing for yellow belt - as soon as she really does know the form which is getting better by leaps and bounds.

She is currently going around and making sure everyone that she meets knows that she is actually 4 and a half. The half being ever so important at this age.

At DragonCon last year she dressed up as a purple Jawa again as well as a pirate. AWA was a double costume project as she and a friend dressed up as Sugar and Pepper from Snow Fairy Sugar. Her 4th birthday party was a pirate party at Stone Mountain Park and was hilariously fun. She's since discovered Pump It Up b-day parties though and I'm terrified that she's going to ask for one of those this year.

Reading is her major passion at the moment (other than acting silly for attention) and she reads a book to everyone who will sit still long enough to let her. She recently read Green Eggs & Ham over the phone to her daddy, which was incredibly cute.

Tae Kwon Do

A-chan has started taking Tae Kwon Do! This is her first ever actual class and we weren't sure how it would go over. She kept talking about doing martial arts (it has nothing to do with all the anime and martial arts films we watch, I swear!) and when I happened to find a studio right next to my dance class, it seemed like fate.

She absolutely loves the class. And I'm impressed not only by the instructor but the amount of stuff they learn in class! I am also getting a lot more excersize as she has me practice with her here at home which is tons of fun.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with Tae Kwon Do, but I liked it so here it is :) A-chan at the Georgia Aquarium.

Allowance for a pool

It's a southern tradition. The invasion of the kiddie pool has arrived. Two of A-chan's friends have recently had pools available for playing in and A-chan decided she needed one as well. A pool is not something that I was interested in getting for her at all - we tend to avoid sunshine like the plague and we've got drought issues at the moment. But she wanted one sooooo much. And we're suckers.

But at least we made her work for it! Kind of, anyway. We offered to let her do some 'work' around the house to earn an allowance and then she could use the allowance to buy the pool. She was delighted and did the three things that we asked, mainly three different variations on 'see that pile of blocks/toys/dolls/clothing of yours over there? can you put them away, please?' She then earned $5 and we went the next afternoon to purchase the pool. It didn't cost $5, but it was the idea that was important and not the actually money.

And I still am not sure if the whole allowance thing was more for her (learning about work, money and such) or for me (not feeling guilty about buying her a wantonly luxurious item that I hadn't intended to buy in the first place). A-chan seems to really like the allowance idea now that she has seen it come to fruition twice. It will be interesting to see what she does with it in the future.

Curiosity Killed the Nap

"Mata, I'm curious about something."

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I'm curious about staying up and playing before it gets dark."

the above is an actual conversation that was begun as we sat down to lunch, luncheon being the traditional precursor to naptime in our household. It got to be a ritual in the last month or so where naptime negotiations would begin before a single bite would be taken. So we finally just gave in and have stopped the napping.

The first week without naps was rather taxing and I think we were all pretty darn cranky by the end of the day. The second week is definately going better. There are pros and cons of the non-napping. It's been noticed that I get a lot more done during the day when I don't have to stop for a two hour quiet session. It's also been noted that I no longer get naps either. But A-chan eats lunch a LOT better these days. She also sleeps easier and deeper at night. All in all I think it's working for us after that first period of adjustment. We'll see how it works long term.

The Fairy House

If you've ever seen the Haba furniture with the fairy flower tent, etc. then you've seen my dream image of a playset for my girl. Except that it's really expensive and I keep telling myself that I can make one myself. I kept telling myself that for a while but A-chan saw a drawn plan for one and insisted on having one right away. No time like the present! It's not very fancy and it's pretty much still held together with safety pins ( I wanted to make sure she really liked it before spending a whole lot of sewing time on it) but it's made.

She loves it, the cats love it, I love it. We're actually pretty amazed that the cats don't attack it as it moves in the breeze from the ceiling fans. But they seem to get a kick out of sitting in the middle and looking out through the shifting fabric. The only thing that is disappointing about it to A-chan is the fact that it's kid sized and I can't fit into it to play in there with her. I think she will feel differently once she has a chance to play with some friends in it.

Ice cream is...

Much better when homemade.
Perfect when covered in freshly picked blueberries.
Addictive to three year old girls.
Kind of fun to make.
A bit more messy to eat with ones fingers instead of a spoon.
Going to be the bane of my diet.
The most exciting thing to make on a Wednesday evening.

Yep. I finally gave in a bought an ice cream maker. It's electric and easy and fun and really, really exciting to watch according to A-chan. Ice cream is her current favorite dessert (mochi still trumps but ice cream is better in 90 degree weather) and to A-chan the advent of the ice cream maker is just about like winning the lottery would be for most adults. She really did stand there and watch for the entire 25 minutes until it was finished. I don't think she stopped giggling the whole time. We ate the first batch this evening after dinner with our friend, S. A-chan distributed the fresh blueberries among the bowls of vanilla ice cream herself. I think that I have created a monster.

First Ever Allowance and the Yellow

I had never intended to give A-chan an allowance at so young an age, it was entirely out of the blue. It happened like this:
As she and I were driving downtown to have lunch with my mother, she wanted to know why her Dada wasn't comin along. I tried explaining the concept of work and work hours, bosses and paychecks in as simple terms as I could come up with. It was a rather good conversation, I thought and she seemed to be understanding it until I got to the end of the explanation and she repeated her question.

Hmmm, went I, none of that sank in. What to do? That afternoon the opportunity presented itself for an arrangement that might provide a tidbit of reference for her. As I cleaned the house in preparation for guests in the evening, I noticed a whole lot of toys scattered about and requested that she help put them away. As she complied I talked about work and the meaning of work and the fact that if she did her 'work' of picking up her toys that afternoon she would be rewarded with money.

Surprisingly she got very excited and hurried to clean her toys and did a fantastic bang-up job of it, impressing us to no end. Since we didn't have the $5 cash on hand for her allowance I made up an IOU and put it next to the door to redeem the next time we went out. She enjoyed making the IOU and signing it very much. Even better, she really seems to get the concept of work and such a little.

I really thought that she would spend her allowance at the Renaissance Festival, but she ended up keeping it until our trip to Austin, TX and an outing to Terra Toys. If you ever get the chance, definately go there. It's an awesome toy store! What's interesting is that A-chan seemed to have a color theme for her allowance spending. The three things that she purchased were all the same color of yellow. A smiley face ball, a pair of training chop sticks with elephant on top, and a yellow magnifyin glass. Neither of the other two have been played with much, but the magnifying glass has been a huge hit.