Zongker Family Blog

Even though she’s not even 2 years old yet, Alyssa already has a favorite song.  It makes her happy & calms her down when she’s fussy.  When she’s not being held, she will dance to it & when she’s in someone’s arms, she’ll sing to it & applaud at the end.  This is the Alphabet Song, or as some like to call it, the ABC’s.  It’s cute, because she has always been very prone to soothing by being sung to.  But, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing – the Alphabet song gets her calm & happy.  She also knows & will sing along with many of the letters, especially the ending ones.  She could be in an all-out fit, over something, and as soon as you begin, “A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” she will stop and listen and even contribute!  It almost makes me wonder if I’m giving our baby some kind of strange “quirk” to where she *has* to be calmed down by it, ha-ha!  But, I honestly think that at this young age, she’s just fine & whatever works is great!

Katrina keeps having a “best day ever” it seems, at least once a week this summer.  But recently, we went on a short day-trip & she told us that it was her favorite day of the summer.  She had been asking us to go to a science center, like ones that we’ve been to when we go out of town.  Our own locale has a small science center that we’ve never actually been to, because we’ve only heard of its meagerness & failure in comparison to other ones.  But, only a short hour and a half drive away, there’s one that’s worth going to & spending all day at.  So yesterday, we left around 10 a.m., got to our destination city around lunchtime & ate at McDonald’s – something Kat loves to do, anyway.  The, we proceeded to go to the science center.  We literally spent all day there & didn’t even get to see *everything*, but it was still a ton of fun.  They had remodeled & added some cool new features for the kids, since Jeremy & I had been there last.  Katrina especially liked playing & enjoying all the interactivity.  We left as they were about to close & proceeded to find somewhere to eat for dinner.  We wound up at an all-you-can-eat buffet, which had lots of Kat’s favorite foods.  She just thought that was the best ending to an already “perfect” day.  The entire trip home, we kept re-living the day’s events, through her wonderful tales of her favorite summer day.

Alyssa is typically not a well-tempered baby, when she doesn’t get exactly what she wants…  But then again, what almost-2-year-old is, really?  A cute thing happened this past week that made us realize that she is heading back in the right direction, though.  She has some stacking rings (a common, plastic toy that babies like to play with) & for some reason, she likes to put 2 of them halfway on her feet & walk around on part of them, as though they are high-heeled shoes!  This is adorable enough, in itself, of course…  But, the other day, I needed to put her actual socks & shoes on her, while she was in the midst of playing this way, so that we could all go out somewhere.  When I picked her up, she got mad, as she typically does & started fussing at me & kicking her feet, even though I handed her the rings that were previously on them – she just *had* to let me know that this was *not* what she wanted, at the moment, ha-ha!  Anyway, while on her changing table, she began to calm down, when she realized that she could now put the rings on her arms, like bracelets.  Being the small-armed child she is, they naturally fell down to her elbows, though & she didn’t like that idea, especially when one seemed to get “caught”, where she couldn’t pull it off of her own arm – hence the need to fuss at her Mommy again, which she began doing.  At this point, although I was trying my best to get her socks & shoes on her feet quickly, to avoid any “toddler confrontation”, I decided to try an experiment: I smiled at her & gently, but sternly said, “Help?  Do you need help?  Say, ‘help, please’.”  To my amazement, she completely stopped mid-fit to beam up at me & actually ask, “Hep?”  I immediately helped her take the ring off of her arm & handed it back to her.  She grinned & proceeded to put it back on – now, it was a game that Mama would continue to play with her, at least for a few minutes, while finishing up tying her shoes.  Every few seconds, we went through the cycle of her getting one of the rings “stuck”, near the bend of her elbow & looking at me & saying, “hep?” or “hep, peas?”, then I would respond by helping & giving it back to her.  Who said learning can’t be fun!?

Katrina has been practicing her balance a lot, lately!  This past week, not only did we take her out for some bike-riding (she has a two-wheeler, but she still uses training wheels, right now), but she also got to go roller skating for the first time ever, just today!  Luckily, she was not apprehensive about either one!  The bike riding she’s done before; we just like to keep a good eye on her, because our sidewalk tilts to one side & it causes her to be a bit wobbly.  But, she enjoyed the “practice”!  Her Daddy mostly walked beside her, while her Li’l Sis & I hung out in the driveway, watching, pointing & applauding her success.  At the skating rink, it was just Kat & I.  We met some friends there, during Alyssa’s naptime, so Jeremy stayed home, not only to keep an eye on Aly, but to do some work, as well.  At first, Katrina was just all over the place – her feet going in opposite directions, almost causing her to do the splits, on occasion, but I was able to pull her up by her arms & help her keep her balance a bit better.  Once we got going, it was great!  We stayed near the walls of the rink, so that she could lean if need be, but toward the end of the session (well, we were there for just nearly 2 hours of it), she was really getting “the hang” of it & even let go of me, a few times!  Although still quite slow, she progressed so much during that little amount of time.  She’s extremely excited to go back again & work on it some more!  Of course, I am too, even though it made my arms, shoulders & back a bit sore  – who knew that helping keep an almost-40-pound kid balanced would take so much out of ya’!?  Hee-hee!  But, we’re all just so proud of her & we keep enjoying helping her develop these new skills!

Alyssa’s vocabulary has really been taking off, once more.  It’s hard to count how many words she now knows, but she has been actually repeating many of what we tell her, coherently, lately.  It’s really cool!  Some of her new ones are, “open”, “Elmo”, “up”, “down”, she even knows & can say her own name!  We even got her to say her Aunt Ashley’s name on the 4th of July, as well as saying “Nana”, but only one time for each word.  She wasn’t up for performing much that day, I guess.  Still, it’s really cool to watch her little mind work & pick up on things.  She has been singing the ABC’s now, too, as well as she can.  She gets a few of them right, although most of them are just mumbles, for the most part.  She’s just a’growin’ & we couldn’t be happier!

Katrina has just been having “the best day ever”, almost every day this past week!  It’s really cute & funny!  There’s an episode of Spongebob Squarepants that she took the words from & there’s even a little song that goes along with it.  But, it seems like this summer, she’s just having such a great time that each day keeps topping the next!  The 4th of July was one of them – she was just so excited to get to go to her cousins’ house & swim & to see the fireworks with everyone that evening.  Then she had “the best day ever” on Monday when she got to go over to a friend’s house to play, and that evening, Vacation Bible School started at our church & her friend got to go with her to it.  Of course, today has now been “the best day ever” because her Dad took her with him to get the oil changed on his car & they got to run through the car wash afterwards, *then* she got to go to VBS again this evening.  Now, she’s telling me that tomorrow will be “the best day ever” because we get to go see kids’ morning matinee at our local movie theater & possibly have lunch with some more friends afterwards.  She’s such a great kid with such a happy outlook on life!

Alyssa’s getting to be a little sneaky, these days.  It’s kind of “bad”, in a way, but it’s so cute, it’s hard to be upset at her, sometimes.  She typically spends a lot of time in the living room, playing with her Big Sis during the day.  However, she does have a few toys in her own room, including the play kitchen that used to be Katrina’s.  This is one of her favorite things to play with.  So, the “barricade” that we use , since a baby gate won’t go across the opening from our living room to our hallway is one of those large, Rubbermaid bins, filled with other toys that both girls love to play with.  In the past couple of weeks, however, Aly has figured out how to get around it – she does what any of us do – push it to one side & go through the opening.  She doesn’t really do this very often, but if one of us needs to go to another room for a minute (the bathroom, for example), she will attempt to follow.  But, we’ve recently discovered that she’s really not trying to go after us.  Instead, she wants to be in her room, playing with her little kitchen.  This is where she winds up, most of the time, when she does “escape” the living room.  The other day, she wound up in there & her Daddy got on to her by saying, “Aly, no.  You need to go back to the living room”.  And, rather than just walking out of her room, she looked at him, looked at the bucket of plastic food that was sitting by her play kitchen, ran & picked it up, then made a “mad dash” (as quickly as her little legs could carry her) back out to the living room.  It was so funny, Jeremy couldn’t help but just shrug & laugh, rather than getting on to her any more for it!  Ah, toddlers… 

Katrina’s a great little artist.  She loves all things creative.  She especially likes to draw, paint, cut & paste.  While over at her Grandma Linda’s, she got to make a picture using some of Grandma’s scrapbooking supplies.  This was really cool & fun for her & it turned out really pretty, too.  I’m not sure exactly if this is when her most recent obsession started, or if she was doing it before, but lately, it seems like she is constantly asking us for paper to draw on.  Then, she will draw, color or sometimes even paint a picture with her water colors & ask for her safety scissors.  She then cuts out some shape or shapes & occasionally asks for her glue stick, to past things to it all.  She has recently made all kinds of little objects for her stuffed ladybug that she got as a prize for completing our local library’s summer reading program.  She made each item red & black, of course & described them all to us.  They include a blanket, six tiny slippers and a nice little tent for the ladybug to sleep in.  She also made some green grass, leaves & flowers out of paper for the ladybug to “eat”.  We love to see her creativity blossom, don’t get me wrong, I just wonder when she’s going to realize that we don’t have room for all this & what a waste of paper it’s winding up to be…  But, that’s our cute kiddo for ya’! 

Alyssa loves to do what her Big Sister does, when she can, it’s so cute!  We tell Katrina all the time that “she copies you because she wants to be just like you, because she loves you so much”!  This makes both of them grin & giggle.  It’s fun to watch them interact with each other, but it’s so funny how Aly just repeats every little thing that Kat does, too.  She follows her around & just thinks she’s so big.  Right now, we all enjoy the shadowing, of course.  Katrina is a good influence on her Baby Sis & we’re proud of how well they get along.  We know that may be subject to change in the future, but so far, things are going well.  Some of Alyssa’s favorite things she’s recently picked up are using the use of a blanket when playing “peek-a-boo” & not only giving a “high five”, but also a “fist bump”, which also gets all of us laughing.  It’s great! 

Katrina is just such a responsible kid.  Not only did she just do a wonderful job raising 5 caterpillars into butterflies (with a little help from us, and thanks to the Bugville Butterfly house & instructions that she got for her Birthday, of course), but she is also very wise in day-to-day things.  To elaborate, we had a “butterfly release ceremony”, where we let her butterflies go, out into the “wild” (our backyard) yesterday, and although we thought she might be a little sad to see them go, she completely understood that it was time & that they would be more happy, living freely out on there own, from now on.  She enjoyed watching each one emerge from their enclosed habitat, almost as much as she loved seeing them come out of their chrysalides the week before.  She also recently spent some of her allowance on a new toy fish that actually “swims” in water & a fairy puzzle – things that she picked out herself.  After these purchases, she had a few dollars left.  She already seems to comprehend the importance of saving a bit, for something else in the near future.  We love how we can explain things & she “gets” them so well, nowadays.  She’s getting to be such a “big kid”!