"No Mom, I'm 'tending To Be A Baby!"

Karina with her version of alcohol and cigarette...Bunny Blanket "Uh-Uh" and Nuk

In the world of Karina, she continues to wrestle with the pros and cons of being a big girl rather than a baby. Most of the time she very much enjoys all of the big girl things she can do...and we're always reminding her how much fun it is to run and jump and play...things that Tommy can't do. But at least once a day since a few months before Tommy was born, Karina will announce that, "I'm a little baby! Wah, wah !" "But you're not a baby Karina, " I'll say. "I'm 'tending (pretending), Mom...I'm just 'tending I'm a baby," she answers emphatically. In Karina's mind this justifies continued use of her beloved pacifier, needing to be carried because, "I can't walk!" or crawling into Tommy's crib or baby seat. It's hard for me not to get frustrated with this behavior because it is so nice to have her be more and more independent, but I know this is just a normal reaction...especially now that she has a baby brother who gets a lot of attention for being a baby.

Karina (pre)'tending to be a little baby

When she is being a big girl, she's quite remarkable. There are so many things she can do that we take for granted. She goes to the bathroom almost entirely independently, only needing help when she's wearing a belt and can't get her pants down or when she's gone "messy poopy" and needs help wiping herself. She is completely ambulatory usually jogging from place to place, but knows to stop at the end of the driveway or sidewalk. I taught her how to do a pirouette and she's been practicing hopping on one foot since she'd really like to play hopscotch with Brianna and Chloe.

Karina can get a drink out of the fridge and can unwrap and insert the straw into her juice box all by herself

Although Karina has been able to jump up and down for a long time and has really become a good climber at the playground and Gymboree, she's held back and never been known to leap off of the edge of anything unless I was holding her hands and controlling the fall. I've always been surprised that she wasn't an avid jumper because in general Karina is quite the fearless daredevil. However, given the potential dangers of jumping off of things (like the edge of the pool or the bed) I didn't make to much of an effort to help her learn this skill. So imagine my surprise when I picked up Karina from her Gymboree class and she excitedly showed me that she learned to jump off the equipment onto a big crash pad without her mommy even being present.

She's a very good drawer and most often draws pictures of the family or draws a map for us to follow to find hidden "fresure" (treasure.)

Karina told me this is a drawing of Mommy!
Proudly, I'm one of her favorite subjects!

She's been able to say her L's for quite awhile now, but in the middle of a spontaneous dialogue she would take the lazy way out and say "Wook!" instead of "Look!", for example. However thanks to a concerted effort by Gammy and Grampa she now actually uses the L's without having to be reminded most of the time. Now we just need to work on those "r's" and blended consonants like "tr" and "br". (One of Tom's favorite stories involving her trouble with blended consanants is when they were going for a walk around the neighborhood and they saw a parked fire engine with lights flashing. She saw some other walkers headed towards the truck and wanting to warn them she yelled, "Hello! Look out there's a fire f---!" Now, in her defense she acutally said fire fruck, but the "r" goes virtually unheard so you can imagine what it sounded like!) Interestingly, she's quite good at using adverbs and is well known to say, "I need to go get it...very quickly ("quick-i-ly" pronounced with three syllables.)

One more signature Karina communication style is that instead of using "uh" or "um" when she's trying to think of what she wants to say, she uses the words "my own, own, own, own....my own, own..." to stall her sentence. She started this a handful of months ago (I think it was before Tommy was even born), probably about the same time that her communication skills really took off and she was rather suddenly having real full conversations with others. It was almost as if her global cognitive communications skills advanced to the point that her brain was able to conceptualize what she wanted to express to others, yet her ability to think of the exact words and to put them together lagged behind and she needed to find a way to slow down the conversation. She definitely uses "my own, own..." less now, but it's not extinguished yet...and curiously Lee says Elsa has been using "my own, own..." lately! Did she get it from Karina or is this a common toddler thing that I just don't know about!?

In other big girl news, Karina started swimming classes at the local swimming pool and is having a blast. There are about 9 kids in the class and she gets to do it without Mommy...and Mommy gets to take a walk in the parking lot with Tommy, thereby making it at least a remote possibility that I'll won't scare anyone in my bridesmaid dress in September!