building words

Zoe has learned that letters build words - thanks again, television! She has been watching Word World. It's a show on PBS that is entirely about putting letters together to form words. The things in World World are drawn using letters, so instead of just an animated duck, it is the letters D U C K stuck together. The barn is the letters B A R N. Anyway. Zoe loves it. And it has taught her, in a way that I could not, that the letters of the alphabet that she has known for a year now, can "build words". She is very excited that "C A T builds cat". And she has known that Z O E spells Zoe, but I think it means something to her now. She arranged all of her magnet letters by color, but then she told me that she had built words. So now she is newly interested in her books and hearing me read the words. When she reads the letters on signs I tell her what words the letters are building. Fun!

A year ago Dad sent Zoe the DVDs for School House Rock. I never watched this show, but I certainly know what it is. Zoe picked it out from her dvd collection "how about this one, mom?" a few weeks ago and it has become a daily favorite. Now she is saying that things can be "really difficult". And yesterday she was playing with this plastic thing and told Pete that she "made a new invention". And she sings a song about electricity.

blue bird

I asked Zoe what she was doing and she said that she was a bird, and these were her feathers.

clothes on

Zoe put pants & a shirt on all by herself for the first time ever! She is very good at taking her clothes off, but has never wanted to put them on. Sure, they were on backwards, but it didn't really matter. Hooray!

preschool!

Zoe is going to start preschool on Monday March 7th!

what's happening

I will be attending Orientation with the Northshore School District to be an office/secretarial substitute on March 9th. Hopefully some people get sick and/or go on maternity leave and I will get to work for them! Ha! I am going to be available full-time and be on call for whenever they need me. We looked at the preschool yesterday and it looks super fun. Zoe fit right on with the other 3 year olds. She sat in the little chairs and did a puzzle. A little girl stood next to her and the teacher told me that she was named Zoe. I told our Zoe "her name is Zoe, also!" and she looked at her and said "Hi Zoe-Also."
I hope that Zoe can start on March 7th. We are going to turn in our paperwork today. It's $800 for full-time preschool. We've got March covered and then I have to work enough to pay for it/make it worth it after that. Luckily there aren't any registration fees and you can [kind of] start/stop the program as needed. We could also just do a Tues/Thurs morning program for Zoe's benefit if I don't work enough to warrant the full-time care. I think it's going to be good for all of us.

cupcake party

I made these chocolate-chip cupcakes for us to munch on. They are gluten-free/allergen-free and would be vegan except for the chocolate chips [which are organic, and quite good]. I didn't put any frosting on them because the tops of the cupcakes got kind of crispy and were really delicious like this. I think I was putting the dishes away or something and Zoe got her straws and "decorated" the cupcakes for us so that we could have a party. And then she played with her "robot" cherry chomper.

two new paintings

These are two paintings that Zoe made recently. She got a cup of water from the bathroom and worked on them until the paper was totally covered. She likes purple right now.

We haven't done too much lately. The weather is cold again and it's even trying to snow this week. Zoe has been sick so we haven't been to the ymca for several days. Last Thursday we took her to the ER at Children's Hospital at 3am because she was crying and coughing and breathing heavy like there was something caught in her throat. She was actually fine and saying "I feel better, mom" on the way to the hospital but was coughing again when we got there. The in-take nurse diagnosed her immediately with croup and admitted her to the ER. They gave her oral steroids [like the kind kids with asthma take] and some tylenol. Croup is very common in the winter and very scary sounding. If it's treated early everything is okay. It can develop into pneumonia and cause a kid's throat to swell shut. yikes! She still has a cough and a runny nose, but usually her colds last 7 to 10 days so we still have a few days to go.
Luckily my babysitter is on mid-winter break from school this week so she is coming for a few hours this afternoon. I have to go get my fingerprints taken & turn in a bunch of paperwork with the school district where I would like to be an office substitute - and  try to turn in the paperwork for Zoe to start preschool. Oh, hooray! I just got an email that there are 2 spots for 3-year olds at the preschool!