I want to see it

We have had a lovely week so far. We have gotten to hang out with friends throughout the week. Carmel came over a couple of evenings to play. We took her to the mall playground on Monday and Johari wanted to hug her and hold on to her much of the time they were there. We also got to check out a very kid-friendly cafe. Basically this idea that I thought up about a year ago already exists in Seattle. A cafe where half of it is a play area full of toys and books and couches and a kids' menu. We hung out there with Stacy, Ishmael, and Ibrahim. It was a nice time. We also got to play with Cheryl and Jordan one evening this week!! It had been a while since we had really hung out. We made it back to Carkeek Park today with Stacy and the boys. We had a picnic. With a blanket and everything. A little chilly but we just kept layering on. We were waiting for the sun to shine on us. And it finally came out later in the afternoon.
Here is Johari's art project the other day. One green marker can decorate a lot.

Mama becomes the palette

I thought we were both making this face but apparently not on camera.

I got my taxes done in time. It is always good to get these types of annoyances out of the way. To drop it in the mail and no longer procrastinate on getting it done even though it is pretty basic.
Johari's favorite phrase in the last couple days is, "I want to see it."
She likes to sing songs. She tells me which one we are going to sing. Her current top 3 list is a raindrop song. Row, row, row your boat with Wiggleworm variations. She likes to sing only 2 verses of Wheels on the Bus song-- "the babies on the bus go Wah Wah Wah..." and "the mama's on the bus go Shhh Shhh Shhh". And then you can't switch between these 2 verses fast enough. When you are on one, she already jumping into the other verse. Sometimes Twinkle Little Star makes the charts.
This evening, Johari and Grandma were reading this book called Clap Your Hands together and doing all of the things it tells you to do. It was the first time I had seen her really into acting out each line herself. It was very cool and fun to watch!
People tell me that she is communicating more and more when they haven't seen her in a few weeks. I notice but I don't always realize how much changes over just a few weeks because I am just observing the daily learnings.
Johari likes to say 'Hi' and talk to people on the phone. Well, let me amend that statement...she only likes it if it is speaker phone. Well, maybe she still likes it if it is not speaker phone but is not as likely to hold up her end of the conversation if it is not on speaker phone.
She has also been working on walking down and up the stairs without holding on to anything. She is not complete in the process yet, but practicing it more and more. I realized how hard it is really to step up our size steps just using their small legs and leg power. That is not easy! A friend of mine compared it to us trying to step up onto a step that was as tall as our thigh or so. That takes some serious strength to do without holding onto something to help us pull up.
I was thinking the other day about how attached we (in general as people, maybe particularly in our society) are so attached to judging every aspect of everything and especially with children but definitely not limited to those scenarios at all. Everything has to be evaluated to be pretty, nice, delicious, disgusting, not pleasant, boring, ugly, bad, good, and on and on and on. I started to think about when I was having a little mental talk about people always telling Johari that she looks nice or she is pretty or she has on a good outfit. But then my mind wheels started spinning about this. Especially in connection to this whole concept of getting rid of praise. I tried to notice how many statements seemed to be a judgment that came out of my mouth as well as the statements floating out of others' mouths. I started to think about how attached we are to needing to put our judgment into the world and using the negative ones to be the victim of something. I am not in any way suggesting that we should get rid of evaluation and judgment. We all have our opinions and our tastes and so on. I want to be more conscious about which ones really have some benefit in communication and which ones are just trying to impose our views onto others. There is sharing and then there is the other side of putting it out there with an expectation of others or a story that we hold on to with the judgment. I don't think this will be easy for me, but I want to be more aware about it.
Today while we were at the park, I overheard a mother telling her child, "Don't fall." I thought to myself, this seems like a normal thing for a parent to say to a kid, but then what the heck does this mean. What is she really saying, "Be careful." "That looks dangerous." "I am nervous about you walking on that." "It makes me feel uncomfortable to see you in such a vulnerable position." But she said, "Don't fall." What if the kid falls... would she say, "I told you not to fall! And you just went ahead and fell."