What She's Up To

Since it's been a while between posts (to say the least, I know) I thought I'd give you all an update on what Harriet likes doing and playing. I also just wanted to point out that this first photo looks much better if you double click on it and see it BIG. That is a whole lot of pasta sauce on her face there (and on her brand new top she was wearing as well!).

The Sound of Music is a huge hit here. When the full-on lethargy hit at about 7wks I could barely keep my eyes open by about 3pm. So we rolled out our tv (it lives in a little cupboard and doesn't actually have an aerial, so it's more a glorified computer screen for DVDs) and Harry got to live large by watching some of her very first screen time. I got out TSOM and just chose the chapters that had the child-friendly songs (Favourite Things, 16 going on 17, Doh Re Mi) as well as the introductory thingy where the children are all introduced to Maria. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time but she was so besotted with the experience that we have had to re-enact the secnes over and over and over again! She likes to be Liesl or Gretel, depending on whether she's scared of the thunder storm and wants to sing Favourite Things or whether she wants to dance and pretend that I'm Rolf (the boyfriend for the uninitiated).

She is obssessed (or in Harriet-speak, 'besest') with what things are 'good for the earth'. Today she was spraying water out in a fine mist with her spray bottle and said to me "This is a cloud that has been out to sea. It has picked up some water from the ocean and is now spraying it out over the plants to make them grow and be happy. All of this makes the earth happy". She also quizzes me about why we are using the car when there is the chance of using public transport or walking instead. Of course the answer to that is actually because of Harry! She's not able to walk far enough or we've been talking about how to look after her babies for so long at home that we're now running late for where we're going - these are the two major reasons and when I tell her one of those she gets quite upset and says "But I can walk very very far Mama" or "But I had to put my baby to sleep (for twenty minutes?!)". But she's always very ready and capable to discuss anything you might want to disagree about. Goodness knows where she gets that argumentative side from.

She counted to forty the other week without me knowing that she even knew about forty! The next day or so she also pointed to a big 40 on the road in a school zone and asked me why there was a big forty there (didn't know she knew what the numbers looked like either) . She is pretty clued in with numebrs actually and I feel a little guilty about that because being a big words person myself I don't tend to focus on numbers as much as I should. But she can count backwards from ten to one, count up to 40 that I know of, add and subtract easily with things under five and with help over five and recognises all of her numbers (although double digits in the teens confuse her a little).

We're also reading Charlotte's Web to her and we're now into the third chapter but that's after re-reading the second chapter a LOT. I would like to point out that the second chapter is about how Fern likes to look after Wilbur as if he is a baby. *sigh*

She got her first joke! Her first proper joke! It's pretty funny, because it was right at the end of a book that we bought on the weekend from a book fair. All of the animals love reading these books (that the hen got by saying "Book! Book!" - get it?!) but the bullfrog is unhappy about it. Why? Because he's already "read it...read it...read it". I was reading it to her and as I am I'm simultaneously thinking about explaining it to her..and then she starts cracking up hysterically. I mean she really, really, really lost it! And in typical three year old fashion we had to re-read it again and again and again. Then she had to tell Papa all about it again and again. Obviously she finds situational stuff funny but this is the first actual joke she's understood completely. I should have known that she'd love puns, I think she's at just the right age for it.

I noticed today that she talks a lot like her books (unsurprisingly of course!). In fact I have a bit of a problem with buying her books. Luckily I buy second hand ones but not always. *blush* But she says her sentences a bit like this for example only: "The bee flew over to the flower, stopping halfway there to listen to the little girl". She doesn't use conjunctions as much as she used to at all. Her sentence structure sound a lot like a children's book. The fact that we have honestly run out of space for all of these books and that she can recite any book that has been read to her ever in total detail (and get quite cross with you for not knowing it word for word as well) leaves me quite exhausted at times.

James made the comment when we were totally freaking out about #2 (that we are calling Snippy by the way. If I have to have a Snippy then James gets a 'snippy' too) that by the time Harry is 7, she's going to be one of those girls that sits in a corner reading all weekend and having Snippy might give us something to do on teh weekends too. Well here I was thinking that having a big reader woudl be great for those lazy beer garden Sunday afternoons I had planned, but hopefully Snippy can slot in there somewhere too.

Well that's about all I can be bothered writing up for tonight. Now that Harry has started sleeping for TWELVE HOURS STRAIGHT EVERY NIGHT (yes you read that correctly) it just seems like the perfect time to crankit all up again with another child, hey? *sigh* Off to enjoy my scream-free evening while I can people. Hope this satisfies the Harry appetite for a few days, will be back to do an event update rather than a development update too.