School and snow

Over the fall Morgan started going to a mini pre-school class two days a week for two hours. We wanted to see how she would go being away from us for a bit and give her a chance to interact with other kids her age since it's really just been her and at least one of us all the time for the past 2 years. Well she did really great with it and we've got her signed up to continue going through April. Yesterday she was supposed to start up again after the holiday break but had her very first snow day instead. Of course she doesn't quite realize that snow days are a good thing yet... she was actually quite a bit disappointed that she didn't get to go. Although I think she was even more disappointed later in the day when we didn't have time to hit playland after going to Target.

With Morgan doing her classes and soon to be signed up to start pre-school in the fall it's naturally making me curious to see if we can guess any future career ambitions. First she's got to have a photographic memory or something because Morgan has this uncanny ability to remember things - in great detail, mind you - of events or conversations or whatever that have taken place months ago. And that extends out to remembering song lyrics and specific words on each page of her books (I caught her flipping through the pages of one of her books and reciting exact phrasing of sentences from each specific page). So I'm sure she'll put that little talent to good use.

Speaking of songs, she does sing songs quite well but lately she's been singing along to the proper beat of the songs. Plus we are all quite familiar with her drumming ability so I have no doubt she'll end up being a musical genius. And she is doing some wonderful creations with play dough so sculpting could certainly be a possibility. She's got about 3 different kitchen play sets now plus loves helping with the cooking so we've got chef on the list. Dr. Morgan has a nice ring to it as she likes walking around checking our heartbeats with her stethoscope. And lately she's got this funny fascination with boats as we've been playing that game where the floor is the water and the rug/chair/sofa/bed is the boat so I could totally see her sailing around the world or something.

But for right now, especially with school coming up, Morgan will absolutely be voted class clown. And Simon will probably follow in her footsteps with that. His favorite show: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - preferably the reruns at 3am. Definitely a chip off the ol' block, that one.

Random facts, part 2

Morgan's favorite breakfast food: carrots.

Happy 2011

Well that was quite the holiday season. For some reason Santa "accidentally" left his entire toy bag in our living room and we have only now managed to rediscover the floor. Morgan has now claimed toy space in pretty much every room of the house: kitchen and grill in the basement, dollhouse and tea set in her bedroom, train table in the living room, play dough on the porch, and everything else in the family room. And of course panda pillow pet has the prime location on her bed. Simon's in there somewhere but since he still lacks a bit of the motor skills necessary, Morgan has graciously offered to play with all of his toys until he's ready. All in all quite the successful holiday... and quite appetizing and silly thanks to Uncle Scotty cooking it up in the kitchen and keeping Morgan entertained on the side. Morgan may have to make her first airplane trip out to Washington state.

So now things are settling back down a bit. After a lovely 10 week leave I'm back at work which also means Pat is back at work answering to some pretty demanding bosses. Of course I get daily reports from one of the aforementioned co-bosses and I hear he's doing an excellent job so far. Simon is smiling like crazy and also appears to be quite ticklish. We've also begun scouting basketball teams as it is already very apparent that he is going to be a bit on the tall side. And as I can accurately report, he seems to have another one of his father's traits in snoring... loudly. Thank god for those dimples though.

We've got one more quiet week before things start picking up for us again. This weekend Morgan and I start yoga classes together. Morgan's been practicing by doing her downward dog in the bathtub. She's quite good. She's also got her play school classes starting back up again next week so I expect more museum-caliber artwork to start coming my way again soon. Simon also has a busy schedule planned of tummy time, naps, and looking cute.

And I almost forgot some big time news... well, big news for us I guess (and yes, I do realize something's a bit off when this is what most excites us nowdays). We have a little girl who is growing up. Morgan spent about 90% of the weekend in big girl underpants and using the big girl potty all by herself. On Saturday she decided she wanted to give it a go, mainly for the M&M reward she gets afterwards. We had a few slip-ups here and there but overall she was doing really well with it. By Sunday she wasn't even waiting for us - we caught her quite a few times just sitting on the potty by herself without telling us beforehand. And that was when she left the door open - seems she's already got the privacy thing down pat. Now we just need to work on getting her to pull her underpants down first before actually sitting down and doing her business but that's really just a minor detail...