trip to the zoo

I took the kids to the zoo last Monday since IJ's school was closed for Passover. First we walked into the park to check out the art installations celebrating the park's 100th anniversary.

 





Then we went to the zoo.  We made sure to visit the baby elephant and the baby lemurs (one baby lemur pictured on mama's back below).







We tried out zoo story time.





Watched the turtles eat.



And of course, the kids' favorite part, the carousel.

video: ZJ @ 2.5 years

ZJ is 2 1/2 years old!

4.6.14

ZJ is much easier to communicate with now.  She understands everything and can often use complete sentences.  She says lots of funny things because she has a combination of normal 2 year old talk mixed with 4 year old boy talk from emulating everything her brother does.  A few months ago she started answering all "why" questions with "because," then added an "ummmm" and weeks later switched her answer to "I don't know."  She seems to be over this now and is back to answering questions.  She says "nother gain" when she wants something repeated.  She calls strawberries "strawbabies."  She also likes to sing and loves playing her brother's guitar or pretending ANYTHING in a guitar.  She is now quite into TV and gets to watch 2 shows each afternoon with her brother.  Current favorites are Yo Gabba Gabba (she loves to sing "party in my tummy" among other songs from the show) and Dora.

ZJ got very familiar with counting between 1 and 20 but does so randomly and skips around.  I've tried to teach her colors for months but she recently seems to be getting it a bit.  She definitely knows orange and other colors are being identified correctly more often.  She is recently into matching and when she sees two things the same color she yells "it match."  She loves puzzles and reading as opposed to playing with toys.  She does puzzles for 3-5 year olds with a bit of assistance but has some up to 24 pieces that she can do on her own.  She will lay in her or her brother's room flipping through book after book for long periods of time by herself.  She's not into building with duplo but will play a bit with the duplo people sitting them on chairs or in cars.  She seems to like playing with her brother's tiny legos more.  She likes to play outside with her brother and likes to ride her tricycle.  We often ride the length of the block and back.  Inside she will play along with any strange game her brother thinks up but has been hitting and hurting him much more often, even when not provoked.

ZJ is eating great.  She tries everything and likes almost everything I make.  She even likes raw vegetables.  She doesn't nap and has finally gotten used to it, not falling asleep on late afternoon car rides.  She falls asleep nursing at 7 easily and up until a couple weeks ago had still never slept through the night.  She started sleeping through the evening very consistently and then sometimes waking at 10/11ish pm but a few nights sleeping straight to morning.  It seems like she's back to her early morning waking but still waking less than she had been a few months ago.  She is usually up between 6 and 7 am.  She nurses back to sleep at each waking and a few times during the day too.

ZJ stays dry all day long typically and has recently begun taking herself to the bathroom to pee on occasion if she feels the need.  She's gone months without pooping on the toilet, only in diapers but a few weeks back it seemed like we had a break through where she actually pooped on the potty some.  But, we're back to refusing to do so.  It doesn't matter if she's naked or diapered or in underwear, she refuses the toilet.  She'll look me in the eye and agree not to poop on the floor and do just that when I turn around.

ZJ has had 3 colds in the last 3 months.  She had a follow up appointment with her cardiologist in February and everything looked good.