Her newest tricks

Princess sings. Mostly she tries to sing along with us -- better than Prince does -- but she has even started singing to herself. She is most likely to sing "You can never go down the drain," "Give Said the Little Stream,"    "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and of course "Ring Around the Rosy." Mostly for the last song, she just wanders around the house saying "Ashes, ashes; ashes, ashes; ashes, ashes; ashes, ashes" and only every once in a while letting us all fall down ... into the humongous pile of ashes.

Princess has learned to not cry when I put her to bed. Since I started putting her to bed, every night has been one monstrous crying sob-a-thon. I could eventually calm her down with enough singing, but there was no joy. 4-5 nights a row now though, we've not had a single tear.

It started by bribery: I told her we'd read a certain book if she didn't cry. She worked so hard to not cry that night, choking back sobs in between every word of her prayers. Then she got a little better the next night. On Wednesday we halted walking back to her room if she cried, so she could pull herself together before we got there. By Thursday there were no tears and we spent Friday in a major happy ticklefest.

Two things that probably have made a difference are Joy limiting the number of hugs Princess gets (so there's less goodbye build up) and going to sleep with her Leapfrog dog, Violet. Violet sings to her after I leave the room, so she's much happier then also.

Princess is learning to pour her own water. We're just barely giving her permission to use the water dispenser. We tell her to pour just a tiny bit of water and drink it, then to pour just a tiny bit more. She gets it right most of the time, but sometimes she fills and overfills her little cup, so we have had a lot of spills to clean up.


Princess draws on the walls. This is not a trick we encourage. In response we've added a family fun time turn for work, which Prince dubbed "Happy Time." We all take rags and wipe the pencil off the walls while singing.

Princess cleans up too. After I change her first thing, she picks up her (closed) diaper every morning and carries it out of her room to the garbage. She says "Take to garbage."

Princess says 5-6 word sentences ("Daddy, bring the juice, please." "Come to table please, Mommy") and asks to eat anything we're eating. Tonight she may have gotten as much of the sweet and sour beef as Joy did and she can't get enough of Joy's homemade pizzas. She also likes trying to say the prayer almost every prayer when it's not her turn ... but when it is her turn she's remarkably silent. She's also joining in trying to learn whatever scripture we're working on. She can't say the whole sentence, but there are particular phrases she gets well.

Princess has been practicing walking with her eyes closed. Joy asked once if she was practicing closing her eyes for when she prays. Then when Joy changed her diaper, Princess folded her arms and prayed.