Picture And Video Post

I don't have very many new pictures of Sydney up, but I have as many new videos of Sydney as pictures. And there's at least some kind of story to go with most. So here we go.

This one is too awesome and heart-warming not to share first.

This past Friday evening while I was at work Anne wrapped my Christmas presents. Sydney helped, of course. Anne let her pick out which things Sydney wanted to give me and let Sydney write on the tags. Anne wrote the translation on the tag.

On Saturday morning Sydney showed me that I had presents under the tree. Sydney seemed to remember what she wrote on one particular tag. With very little prompting she told me that it said, "To Daddy, from..."



A couple weeks ago we were shopping and saw a shirt that we had to get for Sydney.



The shirt says, "Grandma's Reason To Brag," in case you can't read it.

As I've reported before Sydney is not a climber. Especially in her crib. She will stay in her crib and not try to get out. She will rarely even sit up until we at least walk into her room to get her.

Lately, though, she'd been trying to climb in and out of her crib. (Only when we're there, though.) When we came to get her she'd stand up and kick her leg over the side to try to climb out. She'd get stuck and we'd have to lift her out. Even going to bed she'd want to try to climb up the side of the crib to get in.

So two weeks ago I asked Sydney is she wanted to take the side off the crib and have a big girl's bed that she could get in and out of on her own. She did.



So Sydney now has a big girl bed. In the bottom right of that picture you can see part of Giant Bear's head. We moved him up beside the bed in case she falls out. We also have her old nursing pillow sticking out a little under the other half of the bed for cushioning just in case.

In the middle part of last week I was downstairs watching television about a half hour before I went to bed. Over the monitor I heard Thump and a soft, tired, "ow". I waited for a few seconds to see if crying would ensue. It didn't and I went upstairs a little bit slower than I would have otherwise.

When I got to Sydney's room she was sitting on the floor in Giant Bear's lap between his legs. She was facing her bed and sucking her thumb with a confused, half-asleep look on her face. She was none the worse for wear and went back to bed with little problem.

Last week Sydney and I went out to do some Christmas shopping in the morning. As we were leaving the mall we went past the coin-operated rides. Since Sydney has had a thing about choo choo trains recently (chuga-chuga chuga-chuga woo woo!) I put her in the little train. She was all smiles while riding it. (Wait. When isn't she all smiles?)



On Thursdays we go to a class called Romp & Roll held by our city's Parks & Recreation Department. It's really more of a big play date for young kids. There is an arts and crafts project each week (that Sydney may or may not do) and lots of different toys and things to play with.

The week after Thanksgiving Sydney and one other boy were there. It was also the first week that stick horses were there to play with. They were Sydney's favorite that week.



Sydney has a friend she met at Romp & Roll last year named Hunter. You may remember him from a previous entry about a play date they had. They also took swim lessons together for a while. Last weekend was Hunter's third birthday party and Sydney was invited. Here she is with the birthday boy.



Sydney and the other kids really loved playing with the balloons at the party. They batted them around, kicked them, played catch with them and various other games. So when we were out Christmas shopping that evening and stopped at Applebee's for dinner it should be no surprise that Sydney was very excited to get a balloon when we left.



The balloon was the play object of the week last week. Or at least the play object of the three days or so that it still resembled a balloon before it deflated into a rubber blob that we threw away.

And just to post all five of the new pictures, here are Sydney and Mommy hugging. This was taken shortly after the one of Sydney in her new shirt above.



One day while playing Sydney was running around the house. Her favorite thing seemed to be to go out in the front room and then run into the living room and run into/jump onto the sofa. it looked something like this:



Another morning after we got up and had breakfast Sydney surprised me by, well, doing this:



She was wrapping her blanket around her shoulders like a cape and running around like she was flying. Anne would later tell me that the episode of Dragon Tales that she watched before bed the night before had Max (the little boy) running around in a similar fashion. (It's also where she picked up the train noises mentioned above, I believe.) So Sydney remembered it when she got up and started playing it herself (she hadn't done so the night before).

I got a clip off the refrigerator to hold her blanket on and free up her hand. When I told her I wanted to get a video of her running around she was very happy to cooperate. As you can see from the video she was happy to run around and "fly," only stopping after three revolutions to come over and see the video.

The even funnier part of this is that, while she apparently picked it up from Dragon Tales, after we were playing this for about fifteen minutes she started yelling out a Sesame Street reference. So whenever she wants to play this she calls it "Super Grover".

And, yes, I got to take my turns wearing the cape and running around. And Doggie got a turn, too. That's a little, black stuffed dog she has. Every time we play Super Grover she has to have the dog play, too. My turn and dog's turn with the cape are usually a bit shorter than Sydney's turn with it. Especially if I pick her up across my arms and "fly" her around.