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Time is not slowing down. This pregnancy is speeding by faster than I ever thought possible. I’m a mere week away from my 3rd trimester. Which means I really need to get on the ball and start preparing for this baby’s arrival. Her room needs to be painted, her crib needs to be vacated by its current occupant, and don’t even get me started on all the stuff we donated, gave away or sold that we now need to buy all over again. I really need to get my butt in gear.
A big part of the preparations for the baby involve transitioning Anna out of her crib, and her room, into her new big girl bed in what will now be Maya AND Anna’s room. We have taken the first tentative steps to get ready for the big move. Over the weekend we got the girls their new bunk bed and we even got is all set up already. Lorne put it together and I set to work on the incredibly arduous task of making the two beds. Let me just say that making a top bunk is not the easiest task in the world, but, when you add an ever expanding belly into the mix it becomes almost comical.
The only thing we are waiting on to make it all complete is their matching quilts, which have been ordered. It should look truly lovely once the new bedding is on it.
Maya is sleeping on the top bunk and loves it. The girls play on the bunk beds daily, they especially love throwing their stuffed animals off the top bunk. Anna sits on her bunk every now and then, but doesn’t really see it as hers yet since she is still sleeping in her room, in the crib.
I can’t quite bring myself to take the next step and make the transition. She still seems so little, so young. I can’t imagine her tiny little body in that great big bed just yet. I’m not quite ready for her not to be my baby anymore. So, the bed will sit there, empty for now, while I try to talk myself into making the big move.
Today is Maya’s last day of school before summer break. It also marks the end of her preschool career. Next year it is on to Kindergarten! I can hardly believe it. I remember dropping her off for her very first day of preschool 2 years ago and thinking that kindergarten still seemed so far away, and now, here we are.
First Day of School, Pre-K
Last Day of School, Pre-K
9 months and she looks so different, so grown up.
This year has been great for her. She has made some wonderful friends and had some amazing teachers who really helped her blossom this year. I can’t say enough wonderful things about our experiences at Natural Start Preschool, I really can’t. We signed up for their program before we even moved here. Lorne had visited once to check the place out but really we were going into this pretty blind. I have to say we ended up making a pretty incredible choice. We couldn’t have asked for a better program to help Maya settle in and feel at home here. We are going to miss her teachers immensely and will remember them fondly.
Congrats on another year of school under your belt baby girl. Next year will be a huge step for you, and for us. We are so proud of you and can’t wait to see what next year has in store for you.
Yesterday was Maya’s little preschool graduation ceremony and party. She was so excited about the big day. They had been rehearsing a few songs at school and talking a lot about what the kids needed to do on the day of their graduation so the anticipation was huge for her. It did not disappoint either. She has said over and over again how much fun she had and how great of a day it was.
The ceremony started with all the kiddos filing into the community room. Her class is amazingly well behaved and everything went so smoothly.
Once everyone was inside they sang 3 adorable songs for us. Their usual good morning song, a song about the continents that has always been a big class favorite and a song about children. They all sang so well and did such a great job. Once the songs were finished they all sat down quietly to listen to their teacher, Ms. Stephanie make a few announcements and say a few thank yous. They all sat perfectly and paid close attention to their teacher the whole time. I really can’t believe how well behaved this class is.
After the announcements it was time for the big presentation of their graduation certificates. Each child was called up individually and presented with their certificate. You could see just how proud of themselves they all were. It was too cute.
After the ceremony the families enjoyed a little potluck snack and the kids got to play together. Maya and her best buddy, Ruta, had a blast as always.
Maya has had such an amazing year at school this year. The year started out as a tough one for her as we had just moved here and she was still missing her friends back home in St. Louis so much. With the help of her amazing teachers, Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Anita, and the help of all the little friends she made at school this year, things turned around quickly and she enjoyed her last year of preschool to the fullest.
Yesterday I took Maya to get her hair cut. She has been in desperate need of a trim for a while and since she is on Spring Break this week and I’ve been looking for little things to do to fill our days I declared yesterday “Hair Cut Day”. She loves going to the “salon” to get her hair cut so she was super excited.
In St. Louis I had been taking her to this adorable salon in the mall dedicated to little girls. Everything was princess themed and they always did her hair in a cute little up do after her cut and sprayed her hair with glitter. She LOVED it! I looked into taking her to a similar place here but when I saw the cost for a hair cut (simple cut, no style/no shampoo) was $30!! I said forget it. The place in St. Louis was $15, and included shampooing and styling along with a few extras like glitterly face stamps. I was not about to pay that kind of money for a simple trim. So, off to Great Clips we went. She didn’t really care, she enjoyed herself anyway. Although she did ask the girl for glitterly face stamps and spray glitter for her hair and was a bit disappointed when they didn’t have that stuff.
She ended up with a pretty adorable little hair cut. They trimmed about an inch off to get rid of the split ends and added a few face framing layers. It looks adorable, and so grown up!
When exactly did she get so grown up? I swear every day she looks more grown up than the day before. I feel like just yesterday I was taking her for her very first hair cut. Where does the time go?
This little monkey. This little ball of giggles and snuggles turned 20 months old yesterday. 20 MONTHS! That is two thirds of the way through her 2nd year already. In just 4 short months she is going to be 2. Crazy!
Anna at 20 months makes me smile and laugh on a daily basis. I love this age. Her vocabulary is incredible and her communication skills are stellar. There is rarely a moment of frustration where I don’t know what she is trying to say. She can name at least a dozen or more animals. She can easily tells what she wants or needs. She carries on little conversations half real words, half babble that make complete sense, it is amazing.
Anna is hysterical. Her little Annaisms make me laugh on a daily basis. She is at that age where she will not let you get her on video doing anything. If she sees camera she stops what she is doing and runs away. There are so many things I would love to capture on video to watch later when she is driving me crazy. I need a more sly way to get video of her 
Instead I’ll have to write it all down for now.
A few of my favorite Annaisms at 20 months…
She can name tons of animals. We’ll go through some of her animal books and she’ll know about 80% of them. However, there are several animals that she refers to only by the sound they make, even though she knows the actual name for them. A pig for example is always identified but a nasal grunting sound. A cat is a “meow” and a horse is a “neigh”. She uses these sounds so enthusiastically it cracks me up every time!
The way she interacts with our cat, Louis, is just darling. It is something that needs to be seen to be truly appreciated but I’ll try to do it justice with my words. For starters she calls him “Lou Lou” which is so adorable and has us all calling him Lou Lou now. In the morning he always comes into her room with me when I get her out of bed and she’ll cry out “Lou Lou” when she sees him and then say “mon” (come on) to get him to follow us downstairs. Whenever she sees him doing something she thinks he shouldn’t be doing she’ll say “No Lou Lou” like this little mother. If she catches him on the counter or the table she’ll shout “NOW” (down) at him. She snuggles and kisses him constantly throughout the day. I love it. They are quite a pair.
She loves to sing and dance. If she wants to hear music she’ll bring the remote over to you and dance to tell you what she wants. On and off throughout the day you’ll hear her singing, which is truly just adorable. If she hears a song at the store or on the radio that she recognizes she’ll start singing along. The other day in Target Pink’s Try came on and the whole rest of the time we were in the store she was singing “try try try” 
The girl is funny and she loves to know you think she is funny. If something makes you laugh she gets this look on her face that I can’t even really describe, it is pure pride, and she’ll perform whatever it is she did again. She even seems to understand that things stop being funny after a while and will move on to something else before she hits that point. We may have a little comedian on our hands.
Thanks to her big sister she is surrounded by princesses on a daily basis. She has taken to calling all princesses “lella” (Cinderella). When I put a skirt or dress on her she looks down at it and says “oh, lella, pree” (oh, Cinderella, pretty). It stems from Maya wanting to play real-life princesses with her one day and both of them wearing their fanciest dresses to dance around the living room. Now she thinks she is a princess every time she wears something other than pants
One of my truly favorite Annaisms is how she says goodbye. She used to just say “bye” and wave, then one day she all of a sudden started saying “bye you”. It is adorable. She says it every time. She’ll wave her cute little wave and say “bye you”. It is so cute I love it.
I could go on and on. She is full of adorable little sayings and expressions these days. Her zest for life is contagious. Anna at 20 months is a doll. Now if only I could get her to perform for the camera so I can try to record some of this posterity.