She loves cats, but Lucifer is scary - along with all shadows, deep voices, and loud noises. Including her own shadow, and when Rich sings in a low voice. She is so scared of everything. When we were walking home from the park last night as it was getting dark, we saw the outline of a mom lifting up and hugging her child in front of a restaurant. Valerie was scared of them because it was dark. It will be interesting to see how she does with Halloween coming up. We are planning on throwing a Halloween party and I hope our decorations won't be too scary for her. There is a house on our street with lots of spiders, bats and skeletons up, and she doesn't seem to be afraid of that; she loves it. We will try to steer clear of deep voices and loud noises and I think she'll be fine.
One of her favorite things is smelling all the flowers whenever we walk past them, with a particular focus on pink flowers. She gets so excited about pink flowers, and we often play "I spy," and she always spies with her little eye "something pink" and it's always something pink she's wearing, or pink flowers if there are any to be found. I had to yell at her a couple times for plucking flowers in our front yard, so now she knows not to pluck them, but she will pick up the ones that have fallen on the ground and carry them to and from school with her. And then toss them in a garden somewhere. She even loves the fake flowers we have in our house and sometimes asks if she can hold them. So sweet. One day we went for a walk down the main street downtown smelling all the flowers, and she was really shoving her nose into them and had yellow pollen all over her nose and upper lip. Now she thinks her nose turns the color of whatever flower she is smelling - usually pink. "Look Mommy, my nose is pink!" One of these days I will get a real pink bouquet just for her, I think she will love it.
It's also really cute when we play "I spy," and she spies something pink and then says "Mommy, now you spy, now you spy!"
She started sleeping in her big girl bed at the end of January this year, soon after turning two, and I wondered how long it would be before she would learn she could get out of bed and leave her room by herself. I finally got my answer! Sometime in September she started getting up from her nap, opening the door and coming out to find us. But only sometimes. She still lays in her bed and calls for Mommy and Daddy most of the time. So, the answer may be about 8 months to start getting out of bed by herself, but still only on occasion.
Her most amazing trick these days is memorizing her favorite books, which right now are Daisy's Birthday Party, Cinderella and the Silver Slippers. She can nearly recite the first two in their entirety and is just starting to work on the third.
She had a few episodes of stuttering a week or two ago. Very strange and unlike her, she is such a verbal and articulate talker for her age. She would get stuck on simple words, like I and say I- I- I- I- I- and would get pretty frustrated several times in one sentence. It was certainly frustrating to listen to. We didn't think it was cause for concern but we googled stuttering, of course, to see what the experts suggested. Nothing surprising, but we learned not to finish her words for her, wait patiently, and don't make her repeat herself or try again. I also read that I should try to speak more slowly, which makes sense because I probably read and talk too fast sometimes. I started making an effort to talk and especially to read more slowly to her. I'm not sure if it made a difference but fortunately the stuttering only lasted a couple of days and dissipated.
Valerie loves playing silly games with Daddy. She thinks her daddy is just the most hilarious guy in the world, up there with Elmo, Mickey and "Helmet" the giraffe. They love playing the whisper game, where they sneak around the house talking in whispers. They sneak up on Mommy, or go quietly searching for objects. I don't remember ever doing that as a child, but luckily Rich knew about that one, because boy is it fun. They play patty cake at super fast, super slow and regular speeds, and usually bake a cake for Valerie and Daddy. We also just showed her the hand-slap game, which is apparently also known as red hands. She loves watching Mommy and Daddy play and is just learning how to play, although her reaction time may need a little work. She also loves games of using her hand over her (or daddy's) mouth to make funny sounds (ie, wa wa wa wa). She is still a fan of peek-a-boo, or as we call it, "where's Valerie?" The simplest games have her hysterical with laughter, and her laugh is definitely the cutest sound I can imagine in the world.
Our biggest struggle with her is limiting screen time. Nothing new there. She would watch shows every minute of every day if we let her. Her favorite shows right now are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Winnie the Pooh, Dinosaur Train, Super Why!, Curious George, Dora the Explorer and Elmo's world, and her favorite movies are Cars, Madagascar, Cinderella, Frozen and the baby einstein baby signs DVD. Cinderella is even a little too scary for her... she loves that baby einstein DVD. It's so soothing. I just got Tangled from the library for her and I can't wait to show her that one... I hope it won't be too scary.
I had to smile when I dropped her off at school this morning and she immediately went up to an older girl and complimented her red jacket with a fur-lined hood: "I like your jacket! It's so pretty! I really like it." I couldn't believe how grown-up she was acting; not jealous or trying to take the girl's jacket, just giving her sweet, enthusiastic compliments. She sometimes tells me she likes my jewelry or my dress when I am dressed up but this was the first time I've heard her compliment a classmate. Such a proud moment!
She keeps growing so fast and doing and saying new things every day.... it's all I can do to try and record as much as I can. I know there is already so much I've forgotten. How quickly the days fly by and turn little babies into big kids!
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