6/12/12

Morgan ate all of her dried apricots and seconds on whole wheat bagel.  They are the mini bagels and we always start them with a half.  I had a whole one on my plate and Morgan noticed and said, "I want a circle like yours".  I told her that if she ate what she had she could have one.  She did and asked Gary for a "circle".  It was funny because he hadn't heard the first part of the conversation, so had no clue what that meant!  : )  When we got it straightened out she ate the whole "Circle" happily.  At lunch she ate second on pasta and peas topped with shredded cheese and all of her applesauce and tilapia. 

Morgan played with the teddy bears quite a bit today.  She brought one of them over to me and said, "look at this pretty guy!"  He was probably the plainest bear out with this set and I thought that was pretty cute.  She was also bringing me bear after bear until I was pretty well buried and she loved that.  She was also setting them up in "families" and finding ones that "matched".  She is very creative in those ways. 


Morgan and Kenzie did puzzles outside the big gate together for quite a while.  They were just a visiting away with each other (both about the puzzle process and just in general). When Morgan got one of them out she said, "I just love this one!"  It was one with dinosaurs and I commented that it had "dinos" on it and she immediately started singing "Dinah won't you blow?  Dinah won't you blow?  Dinah won't you blow your horn?"  She just cracks me up! 

Kenzie and Morgan were sitting at the table, each with a play ice cream cone in hand.  Morgan held hers out toward Kenzie and said, "Let's do cheers".  Kenzie looked at her a little puzzled then said, "Go, Griz, Go!"  Morgan then looked at her with her head off to the side inquisitively and bonked her ice cream cone against Kenzie's.  : )  It was adorable!  They obviously didn't have the same perception of what "cheers" meant! 


Kenzie and Morgan were extremely engaged in building with the duplos in the back room today.  They made all kind of buildings and "towers" on the platform pieces out with this set. 

6/11/12

Morgan ate about half of her bran flakes and cranberries at breakfast.  At lunch she ate all of her cheese pizza and cauliflower and about half of her tropical fruit. 

Morgan spent about 40 minutes or so just exploring what was out with this toy exchange.  She would do something for a couple minutes then notice something else and was on to that.  One of the things during that time period that cracked me up was when she put the really dark goggles on and said, "It's bright!"  Then she took them off and looked at me kind of puzzled and said, "Now it's bright!"  : ) 

She and Jadey were looking at one of the cameras together and Jadey said something about the batteries not working.  Morgan bent over so her face was only about three inches away from Jadey's and informed her, "When batteries broken, we throw them away!  : )  It cracked me up!  : ) 

Morgan played with the play ice cream quite a bit and kept announcing "Who want some ice cream?"  When she didn't get any eager takers, she upped her strategy with, "It's yummy though!" 

6/8/12

Morgan ate all of her malt-o-meal and seconds on raisins at breakfast.  At lunch she ate all of her spaghetti with extra meaty sauce, watermelon (subbed for salad because we had some we needed to use) and a couple bites of her mixed fruit. 

We only had six kiddos here today so things were pretty mild.  Morgan was the only one from the love-hate triangle (Jadey, Kenzie and Morgan), so the dynamics were definitely different.  Gary decided since there were fewer kiddos to try to check out the light fixture part of the big room fan (that died while he was laid up with his back).  The kiddos were enthralled when he brought in the 6 foot ladder.  Morgan looked at it in awe and said, "Wow!  It's really big like me!"  : )  They sat on the couch and watched him climb the ladder and work on it for about 10 minutes. 

Morgan started singing our "you all fall down" song independently, then asked me to "help her" sing it.  It was really cute.  It is a very active song with clapping, stomping, jumping, nodding and falling.  When we finished that song she immediately asked "What's another one?"  We sang about 5 of the really active songs before she was tired of it. 

It was kind of a "more" day today.  Not only with the active songs, but the books at story time also.  I started with four books I think and every time I would get done, all of the 'big kiddos' would say, "Can you read more?"  I think we ended up ready about 16 or so!  And it would have been more, but my throat was starting to get scratchy so I vetoed it!  : )

We have these magnetic boards that have little "M & M" looking things in them that you move around with a magnetic wand to make different designs.  We only have five of them so we don't use them when all of the kiddos are here, because we have 6-8 'big' kiddos usually and there isn't enough.  Today with just 5, we got them down and the four biggest loved it.  Thomas even tried to do it, but his skills aren't quite conducive to success yet.

6/7/12

As you suggested in your email yesterday, Morgan's day was a little more challenging that the last few have been.  Not horrible, by any means, but there were several close calls emotionally.  : )  The thing that I thought was interesting and great was that she asked me to "cuddle" with her two of the times when she was starting to fall apart.  If she can begin to recognize that she can ask for help when she is feeling fragile or frustrated before she melts down, that would be huge! 

Morgan's love for music is awesome (again, another tool she can use to chill out if she can make that connection).  Even though I have all of the kiddos' music on shuffle, she still can recognize what some is coming before it starts singing words after just the first note or two.  Several times she has announced a song was coming and I thought she was wrong, but it turned out she was right!  : )  She sing to the ipod songs all the time and even cuter is the fact that today she was "singing" with no words even though we hadn't done it as a group today and when no one else was doing it!  : ) 

Morgan was being little miss dramatic today.  First of all she said something funny, which sadly neither Gary nor I could remember by the time I had a moment to write it down.  We all laughed, of course.  Then she gets this dramatic expression on her face, slightly squats down with her arms out and palms up and announced, "You crack me up!"  What a kiddo! 

6/6/12

Morgan ate seconds on biscuit and all of her peaches at breakfast.  At lunch she ate most of her steamed broccoli and all of her dinner roll, baked beans and pineapple. 

Morgan was very engaged in "cooking" and "setting up" the table for several of the toddlers.  There were Peyton, Thomas, Emily and then Joslyn came and went.  She was also being a great little problem solver when the littler ones kept trying to take each other's food.  She would either find them another one or help them get it back.  Pretty good skills!

We have been doing some playing around with our music time lately.  One of the things we have been doing is some humming the songs after we have song them with words and even whispering the words or just mouthing the words.  This gives them the opportunity to understand "quiet" and "no sound" better as well as melody without words.  All of the 'big' kiddos are actually pretty good at it! Morgan was very intrigued by it and wanted to do more songs.  Each time we were done with one, she would put her fist on the bottom of her cheek, and say "hmmmm..." as she tried to think of another one to sing.  : )

I love how Morgan "gets" so many of the funny things Gary says.  He is such a tease and most of the time it just goes over the kiddos heads because it is more for my benefit than theirs.  Often Morgan will hear what he says, look at him intently with an inquisitive look on her face then either laugh or say, "nooo!" when she figures out that it is goofy.  I can't remember the specific example from today, but it happens all the time~! 

6/5/12

Gary is back.  Hurray!  : )

Morgan ate seconds on waffles and all of her hashbrowns at breakfast.  At lunch she ate all of her shrimp and red peppers raw, about half of her brown rice and a bite of her oranges. 

Morgan was walking around asking me and all of the kiddos who were here at that time, "Do you want a drink of 'latte'?"  That cracked me up.  I didn't even know what a latte was until about 6 months ago, so Morgan probably had me beat!  ; ) 

Riley was looking at one of the board books and bent it back the wrong way.  Morgan obviously observed it because she went racing across the big room saying, "Oh no!  Riley broke the book!"  Sure enough, she had bent it back enough that it popped the book open -- to the mend pile it goes! 

Morgan spontaneously started jumping up and down, announcing, "I get to help my daddy with the camper tonight!"  it always intrigues me when one of the kiddos says something like that when there is no observable context or prompt.  No one was talking about camping or anything.  : )

Kenzie looked at Morgan's pants for a long time with an amused look on her face then said, "Oh, Oh!  She's got 'jammies' on!"  Morgan indignantly told her, "No it's a shirt!"  : )

Morgan and Kenzie played together quite a bit today.  During one episode Morgan told Kenzie, "Lay down.  I give you a tattoo!"  Kenzie did and then showed her where she wanted her tattoo to go (right leg). 

5/29/12

Just a note to let you know I am not doing actual journals today.  Gary hurt his back over the weekend and we don't have a sub so I was doing almost everything while Gary hung out, monitored the room and used lots of verbal guidance techniques to help as much as possible.  Anyway, I wasn't really able to focus on specifics of that the kiddos were doing.  I do know that they did amazingly well since it was a long weekend, things were different here with me doing more of the stuff and Gary not mobile...  Sorry for the inconvenience.  We are working on getting a sub for Wednesday through Friday so Gary can just relax, not stress over the extra work for me and just concentrate on healing up...

Morgan had no melt-downs even though there were a couple close calls.  : )