Truly Triking

I remember a few weeks ago, Johari was trying to get going on her tricycle. There were many moments of serious frustration for her. She wanted to do it...on her own, of course... but she was struggling to ge tthe tricycle going. Within a few days, she was suddenly zipping around on it without any problem. It is a reminder of the importance of those frustrating moments for them. Those are the moments of learning.

Now she loves to ride her tricycle on the back porch. Or in the driveway and once in a while around the neighborhood. Most mornings, you can find her out back on the porch riding her trike around. Sometimes she will order me to get on the exercise bicycle machine that we inherited with the house. My little personal trainer!!!

A picture of me triking when I was about Johari's age

I've been trying to catch a photo that would be similar to the one of me. I haven't quite gotten the shot I am looking for. But here is an attempt.

She's Crafty!!! She gets around.

We have been doing a lot of crafting at home. I have been sewing. She has been drawing and beading and stuff. Here are some of our creations.

A dress I made for her

A necklace she beaded for me

A purse I made for her where she keeps her goodies including her GUM!!

Johari and I like to take a ferryboat ride to Kingston on Saturdays to go to a farmer's market there. There is live music of some sort and different crafters and food and veggies and stuff. She just got into the shaved ice there....Mmmmmm. Anyway, one crafter had made kids pants out of pillowcases. I had to try it. I also made a really cute skirt for her out of a ruffly pillowcase. (first picture on this entry) So I got a bunch of pillowcases from the resale store and made a pair of pants for each of the kiddos.

Ibrahim's Pants

Johari's Pants

Ishmael's Pants

Non-pillowcase pants for Johari

Johari picked out these buttons at the store. One went on her purse. Then a few days later she decided to make a necklace out of them for me. Very cool necklace!!!!

I made her celebration crown and marker cases out of felt from ideas in a book called The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule.

No More Nursing Party

Doing her nails in the parking lot

PINK FROSTING and BUBBLEGUM!!!

Playing at the Italian Restaurant in the Children's Museum

A crown to celebrate

The Last Nursing

One week ago, we had a "No More Nursing" Celebration. I had made a chart of 10 days to count down to the celebration. Each morning we crossed out another day. The No More Nursing or as Johari calls it "Stop Nursing" celebration was whatever she wanted to do that day. I had been asking her what she wanted to do that day. The first thing that she came up with that stuck throughout the process of figuring out what her celebration would be was PINK FROSTING. Was she just going to have a mound of pink frosting? Would the pink frosting be spread on top of something? In the end the pink frosting was on little cupcakes. Then she wanted pink bubblegum on top of the cupcakes!! A big wad of pink bubblegum. I think it almost made her choke once because it was so big and juicy. But she valiantly recovered to continue her chew. We went to one of the children's museums which she loves. She painted her nails afterwards in the parking lot with her sparkle nail polish. Then she napped as we drove to the other end of town to go the mall playground that she really likes. That's where we spent the evening playing.

She has been really into chewing gum lately. Maybe that is helping with oral fixations. Or maybe it is just fun to chew gum! She has been doing really well with no more nursing. A couple of breakdowns about it. Mainly though when she starts to ask for that if she needs comfort she actually changes what she is saying midsentence to ask me to hold her instead. She is incredible. The day before the end we were talking about how it would be for her and she told me, "Remember when I couldn't nurse because you had chemicals in your body. And I was OK." (She was referring to when I had contrast for an MRI and she couldn't nurse for 3 days after that because of the chemicals in my body.)

Spanish class

Yesterday we had our last Spanish class of the session. Johari was a total clingster every class except in the end of the last one she kind of warmed up and was dancing a bit. Of course!!! And although she hasn't been terribly warm to the class the whole time, she has been into talking about Spanish words. She asks me how to say things in Spanish. Yesterday night she kept singing something over and over from the class. I think it was "a saltar...a saltar..." from a song, "Ahora vamos a saltar...a saltar...a saltar." Luckily there is no class to sign up for over the summer. So I don't have to decide whether it would be a good thing for us to go to. I am glad it has inspired us to talk about Spanish more.
My take on class for Johari is that it is not a particularly natural environment for her. It is a structure that she is not used to. And there are many expectations of talking and performing for people that she does not really know. That's why I figured maybe by the last class she might warm up a little bit. And so it goes...

double shades

Bras

Johari has started wearing a bra!!! It is pretty funny. She has started to mainly get herself dressed. She often likes to pick out her own clothes and get them on herself. Sometimes she needs help with getting shirts on and off, but she would like to be fully independent on it. Independence is running strong through her veins. Anyway, she was getting dressed and she said she needed a bra. So I gave her one of mine. She wore it under her clothes all day long. Even the other night, she asked Stacy if she wears a bra to bed. Stacy told her that she doesn't. Johari told her that she does and she thinks it is fun to wear it to bed. Sometimes Johari get frustrated with her bra though because it doesn't quite fit her. Sometimes it will end up hanging out the side of her shirt and it gets frustrating to figure out how to get it arranged back under her clothing again. Maybe I should make her a bra just her size. My next sewing challenge, perhaps!

pink bubblegum ice cream

Johari had pink bubblegum ice cream for the first time from Baskin and Robbins. It tastes exactly how I remember it when I adored it as a kiddo!!! And the gum is still hard to keep in a chewing piece unless you store up enough pieces of it. She gave me a nugget or two of the bubblegum and after a few chews it stuck to my molars.
Johari is really into chewing gum as well these days. She got her first taste and sensation of it about a month or so ago. She seems to find it enjoyable. Now she keeps it in her own purse.