Rainy Week

We have had a rainy week here in Toronto. Enough rain to keep us out of the parks and playgrounds, but not quite enough to hold us captive in the house. Instead of playing in the park with our friends, we met them at the Science Centre instead. Outside the Science Centre is a tunnel that the kids love to walk through when coming and going. Zoe is no exception. One of Zoe's loves is still reading books! Especially on rainy days.What would a rainy week be without mention of our resident wet dog?! Here he is guarding an Ikea cabinet in its preassembled state. He was equally helpful with the assembly part.

Zoe keeps us entertained with her ongoing development and ever growing language skills. Her current vocabulary includes frequent and spontaneous out-of-the-blue utterances of "I spy Tom Thumb in the cupboard." This comes from one of her current favourite books, Each Peach Pear Plumb by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Even knowing the source, it is so funny to hear her walk around the house sing-songing "I spy Tom Thumb in the cupboard."

Another current favourite phrase is "next week." Her use of this phrase has made us aware that we have and/or emphasize our weekly routines more than daily or otherwise. Zoe goes to a couple weekly classes at the end of which we always say "see you next week" to her friends and instructor/caregivers. From this (we guess) she has picked up the "next week" phrase. Now at the end of playtimes she will often say "play again next week." Similarly, when she is asked to stop doing something or to leave something alone, she will comply but with a parting comment of "next week" as if she will agree to stop now but plans to do it all over again next week.

In addition to talking more and more, Zoe is now singing. This started about a month ago in the lead up to my (Sara's) birthday. One morning when I was getting her up, she sang "happy birthday to Mommy." It was very sweet and very cute, but the one line was the extent of it. A couple weeks later at the dinner table, totally out of the blue, she belted out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She had the melody down (in a recognizable sort of way) as well as most of the words. We were speechless! Particulary since that is not a song that we sing to her very often.

She continues to point out the letter "o" when she sees it in writing. And will often say "o e spells Zoe." Sometimes she adds the z but most often it is just o and e.

In the play department, Zoe is learning to pretend more and more. She is getting much better at playing by herself and will now involve her dolls and animals in more elaborate (relatively speaking) play scenarios. We encourage her to pretend whenever she wants to play with something that we do not want her to, such as filling the cardboard pretend bathtub with real water. When we suggest that she use pretend water instead, she seems delighted to take the concept and run with it. Most of the time.