A posse of imaginary friends

We have several recent photos of Jaida and the one common theme in all of them is that she has one hand extended like she is holding a friend's hand. She has an imaginary friend named Paige. Paige is modelled after her in real life friend Paige. The real Paige is at daycare with Jaida and the imaginary one comes home with Jaida from daycare. In many of our recent pictures Jaida is standing with one hand extended that Paige is holding. We include Paige in many of our activities. It is pretty funny when I tell Jaida and Paige to get up to the table for dinner and Jaida very matter of factly informs me that Paige went home over an hour ago.

There is also a Kamen. Kamen is apparently Jaida's way of exploring all the things she is not supposed to do. Kamen rarely shows up in imaginary person form but rather calls Jaida on her toy cell phone. Kamen says the word butt A LOT ... as in calling Jaida a butt, etc. As if Jaida doesn't have enough reason to tattle on Jax constantly she now tattles on Kamen also. Kamen also hits people and Jaida tells me about that also. I usually try to use the Kamen activities as a jumping off point for discussing why Jaida should not do these things.

There is also a Mr. Sparks. There isn't a lot of information available about Mr. Sparks. Although from what I can tell he resides in the playhouse attached to her swingset. Don't worry there is no real Mr. Sparks living out in her playhouse ... trust me - we have checked. :)

Little Crush

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

We spent a long weekend at the beach. More about that in a different post though. While we were there we met up with a friend and her kids. Jaida just has such a little crush on her son. She says he is a wild and crazy boy and apparently she just loves this about him. Anyhow, we went for a stroll along the boardwalk and Jaida was determined she was going to stroll while holding his hand. How insanely CUTE is this picture? There is something about this picture that just screams summer to me.

I just realized we might not think this is SO cute when Jaida is sixteen and doing this same thing while wearing a bikini. Ack!!!!

Do clowns make you feel nervous?

If so you may not want to look at this post. :) Jaida had her big birthday bash on June 23rd. She had a ball. Her favorite friends all showed up and she was just vibrating with happiness the entire day. We had a moon bounce which surprisingly didn't see as much action as the new playset that Joe assembled. We also had Big Red the clown. She came and did a magic show and then did face painting. Even the kid's that were slightly nervous about clowns warmed to her fairly quickly. She was a very low-key sort of clown.

Below are a smattering of the pictures from the fun day:

FOUR

I often wonder where the time goes? It seems that I blink and 6 months have zipped by. I am thinking this is only going to get worse as my kids get older but maybe I am wrong? This picture is the direct result of Jaida being both four years old and completely adorable. Jaida turned a whopping four years old on June 17th. She was so excited about her birthday this year and started marking the days off the calendar back in March. Unfortunately, she had a terrible stomach virus on her actual birthday which meant she spent the day in the bathroom. Fortunately, her birthday party was scheduled for the following week. Jaida did get a brand spanking new Trek mountain bike (16") for her birthday from mom and dad. She had requested a big girl bike that was pink with white tires and had a basket. Let me tell you how hard it is to find a girl's pink bike that does not have Disney princesses all over it. She also received a Hooked on Phonics set to help with reading and the My Pretty Pony castle set-up along with a pony to inhabit the structure. We had cupcakes once the vomiting stopped. :)

Much has happened since my last update. Jaida started in a 5 day a week three year old program last fall. She loved it and absolutely thrived. She only had slight first day jitters but happily marched into her new classroom and found her chair and started her day. She looked a bit nervous when it was time for me to go but did very well and just waved goodbye and let me go. She continued to thrive the rest of the school year. We were constantly given glowing reports of well Jaida was doing (both socially and academically) by her teacher. Jaida really loved going to school every day. Some of the highlights of her school year were her bike-a-thon, bear cave reading adventure, trip to the pumpkin patch, doughnuts with dad, muffins with mom, imaginary field trip to outer space, trips to several local parks, spirit week, and lots of other fun that was had in the classroom. In August she starts the pre-K program for four year olds at the same school. She is very excited to find out who her new teacher will be.

Jaida went trick or treating this last Halloween and she dressed as a beautiful flower. She also did a trunk or treat event at her school and had tons of fun. In October she also played in her third season of peewee soccer. It was amazing to see her out on the field ... she just has so much confidence. She also started her ballet class which she looked forward to every week.

The winter was filled with holiday fun. We didn't get that much snow this last winter but the little we did get Jaida enjoyed playing in. Lucky for her she seems to have inherited her dad's metabolism and is always too warm so she likes winter quite a bit.

The Spring was very busy with get togethers with friends, outings to fun places, playing soccer for the spring season, and getting ready for her first dance recital. She finished school the end of May. Since then she swims pretty much every day at Nancy's house and has become so confident in the water. She seems to enjoy every minute of swimming and is getting a great work-out in the process. We have also been enjoying a local pool quite a bit so far this summer. We go a few times a week and at least one day each weekend. Jaida starts swim lessons at this pool in mid August.

Jaida is the best big sister in the world. I am surprised that there isn't more fighting between her and Jax. They seem to just work things out amongst themselves pretty well. We have learned that Jaida is very much not a morning person and Jax very much is ... for a while this was causing a few issues as Jax practically woke up screaming for yae-da. Now we keep him locked in our master bedroom with us until Jaida has time to wake and get moving on her own without her brother inviting himself into her room to poke her in the eyes until she wakes up and plays with him. Works much better and leads to a much more harmonious morning. :) Jaida just loves Jax so much ... she is constantly kissing on him and hugging him which is saying A LOT since she is not a kissy/huggy sort of person. Jax of course completely adores his sister and Jaida just loves this.

Most of all ... Jaida has just turned into such a lovely little lady. She is just the love of our life.

Fancy Nancy (ahem ... Jaida)

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Originally uploaded by gias_kids.

This is a little test to make sure my blog link is working. Just bear with me for a moment.

I am just Jaida

This is going to be the title of Jaida's Autobiography when she is famous. Joe and I have all sorts of pet names for her ... stinker bell, stinker butt, Jaida Bo Baida, etc. What we always hear is "I am not (enter pet name) I am just Jaida". For some reason this strikes us as so funny. It is a little game we play.

Another thing I have been meaning to write about is Jaida's love of the movie The Borrowers. I have never watched the movie myself but apparently it is about a family of little people that sneak belongings of their larger housemates ... hence the name Borrowers. So now whenever Jaida can't find a thing she is looking for she blames it on the Borrowers. So far the Borrowers have multiple hair bands and clips, a blue rubber frog, Flo (plastic Cars character), and the cat from her doll house. These are all things Jaida has misplaced and is convinced that the Borrowers have taken. Quite the vivid imagination.

Growing up TOO fast

No more promises to update this blog in a timely manner because apparently I am incapable of such things. :(

I think my last update was after Jaida potty trained herself. Since then a baby brother (Jax) was born. Jaida loves him so much. Her first words every morning are "is Jaxie awake yet ... I want to cuddle him". He looks up to her and watches her SO intently. I am sure the fighting will start as soon as he figures out how to move but for now we are loving the interactions between them. Jaida is a great helper with all things baby. She has never shown much interest in helping with changing diapers but then again she isn't stupid ... she finds the whole poopie diaper thing to be pretty darn disgusting (and rightly so). She is however excellent at calming Jax when he is feeling fussy. She quietly sings You Are My Sunshine to him and strokes his head ... works like a charm every single time.

Jaida also started pre-school. She is in the 3 year old program and attends 5 days a week for 2 hours in the morning. She LOVES it and is absolutely thriving in the environment! She is now able to sound out words and is starting to read and can write her name without looking at anything. She can write just about anything we tell her how to spell. The first day Jaida walked right in and found her name on her chair and didn't look back. Joe and I peeked in on her a couple of times and while she did look a little unsure of everything she just went with it. Never cried or asked for us. She is always happy to tell her what her job that week was ... calendar, weather, line leader, flag holder, light person, etc. Her teacher said she wishes she had 10 little Jaida's in her class. Apparently, Jaida only throws temper tantrums for Joe and I or her teacher might not say that. :)

Jaida just finished up her third soccer season. She REALLY got into it this year. She did very well at all the practices and followed directions from Coach Robin eagerly. Her best friend Jordyn played with her this season which she loved. They just had their PeeWee World Cup tournament and Jaida actually played real soccer so that was fun to watch. Jaida and her friend Jordyn are also taking a dance class together. It is sort of the basics of tumbling, ballet and tap all rolled into one class. She loves it and is in pink heaven since she has pink everything ... dance bag, tights, leotard and ballet shoes. How in the world did I end up with a child that loves pink SO much?!?

We had a pretty lazy summer since Jax came along the end of June. We stayed close to home but had fun doing lots of local stuff ... went the beach, zoo, multiple fairs and carnivals, etc. We have a fun Fall and Winter planned ... again with mostly local stuff.

Jaida is officially toilet trained

We have never pushed the potty training on Jaida. The simple fact is I am pretty lazy and enjoy the convienence of diapers but beyond that it was just a battle I wasn't willing to take on. Well, then we realized we are going to have some serious timing issues. First being the arrival of new baby ... I wanted Jaida to either be trained well in advance of his arrival or well after. Well in advance didn't really work out for us as we followed the relax and it will happen when it happens method. Jaida played/sat on the potty a lot and even pooped in it a handful of times but was hesitant about the whole peeing thing. Well after brother's arrival wasn't going to work out either since the month after he arrives she starts pre-school and she needs to be potty trained before then in order to attend.

So ... Joe and I declared Memorial Day weekend as a diaper free weekend. Lucky for us Jaida went along with our plan and got up Saturday morning and collected all of her Easy-up's and threw them in the trash and put on her big girl underwear. We immediately took the trash out so it was clear to Jaida that the Easy-up's were not coming back. We kept Jaida fully hydrated by continuously offering Capri Sun raging water drinks ... which are quite the treat as she only gets water or milk normally. She flooded herself and eventually had to relent and pee on the potty. She was little twittery about it at first but once she realized it wouldn't hurt she was gung-ho. Lots of celebrations, hugs, fruit snacks, lollipops and stickers were handed out. I think we would have given her a new car just for peeing on the pot had she asked. :) On Saturday she had no accidents but was still holding it for 4-5 hours in between going on the potty. She appears to have a bit of camel in her. She even napped in underwear and stayed dry. Sunday she was all into the potty. I swear the child peed every thirty minutes all day long just because she could and it was apparently loads of fun. Joe and I were suddenly worried that we were going to be tied to the potty chair forever since she was going so frequently. Again she napped in underwear and had no accidents all day long. Monday we decided to go to the beach. This seemed like a risky proposition considering but we went anyhow. I set up the portable potty http://www.kidsurplus.com/kal1730.html in the van and we put her in underwear and stuck her in her seat. She made the hour long trip to the beach just fine and we never had to stop. Then she continued to use her special portable potty all day while at the beach. No matter what she was doing if she felt the sensation to go she told us and we helped her on the potty ... again no accidents.

So now we are on day 6 of being accident- and diaper- free. I have to say the word liberated has new meaning for all of us. :) We no longer even really remind her to go unless she is REALY engrossed in playing or a movie or something and it has been a while. She even pees on the pot a couple of times before bed to try to empty her bladder ... she does this all on her own while we are downstairs and then she crawls into bed and goes to sleep. She has also learned to pee on command before we get in the car which takes some of the guesswork out of the whole situation. Now we just have to work on getting her on the big potty ... she is fairly terrified of it but we have lots of time to tackle that problem. We are so proud of her for all she has managed to learn in one week ... it is unbelievable.

Jaida had her peewee world cup soccer game a couple of weeks ago and she played so well. She even made one goal ... she was quite happy with herself. They held an awards dinner (pizza, juice and cake) and she received her award and certificate. She was SO proud of herself. She also recently started a gymnastics class for the summer at Elite Gymnastics and is loving it also. She is a wild woman in that studio though.

Anyhow, I will try to be a bit better about updating. We are working frantically to get everything finished up before baby brother comes along.

Jaida the puppet master

Jaida has a new way of playing that involves a huge elaborate pretend world with all of us having scripted (by Jaida of course) roles to fill. Godzilla help us if we get our lines wrong or don't remember exactly which pretend scene we are re-enacting and we try to ad lib. We hear screeches of "mommy, daddy you remember the game don't you?" Mostly we re-enact scenes from the movie Toy Story 2 with her roundup gang dolls. It gets quite intense at times.

She also loves to tell us what is funny and what is not. Especially, if Joe and I get laughing about something outside Jaida's domain of knowledge ... she gets quite peeved and informs us that what was said was not funny and that we shouldn't laugh. After a few minutes she will usually concede that maybe it was a little funny and we can laugh but just a little bit. She is a bossy little thing.

Jaida started her second season of peewee soccer and is doing so well. She now stands and listens to Coach Robin's directions. She follows said directions without any action on our part. She dribbles pretty well and isn't afraid to try to make a goal. She gets a little confused as to what direction she should be running but then again so do all the kids so that is not a biggie.

Jaida is really becoming quite the little girl and no longer a toddler. I often feel as though I am speaking to a five year old and forget that I am talking to a little girl that is not even three yet. She is such a BIG girl.

California

Jaida had a total blast in California. Unfortunately for us the trip did happen at the same time her last 2 year molar was trying to cut through. Between tooth pain and a bit of over-stimulation she was a total bear at times but nothing unmanageable. Many temper tantrums were had and a good deal of time was spent either discussing how she should act or in time-out or a little bit of both. :) We brought an inflatable Dora bed with us and she happily slept in it for both naps and night-time sleep and slept very well the entire trip. She really enjoyed spending time with Uncle Dave and Aunt Cheryl and meeting some of her other distant cousins. She also enjoyed spending time with her Grandma. Her Grandpa Don left a lasting impression as he tried to *steal* her Curious George doll once and that set the tone for the rest of the visit with him. She thought it was funny ... kind of ... and even now talks about it often. We spent a day at Disneyland. Jaida wasn't terribly impressed although seeing Woody from Toy Story and Tinkerbell were both highlights for her. We also went to Sea World with Dave, Cheryl, Lori and Niki and Jaida did get a huge kick out of seeing the orcas and dolphins. It was a nice trip.

All I can smell is grape chapstick

Why, you ask? Because our lovely Jaida is completely addicted to the stuff. I swear at this point she has a tube of it in every room of the house plus the car. She smears it on like it is suddenly going to disappear from the shelves of the super market. She loves to spend 10 minutes applying it and then proudly exclaim that her lips are shiny and kissable. :) Did I mention that the smell of grape chapstick is VERY grapey and it lingers for a really long time?!?

Jaida is doing great in general. Her language skills and vocabulary have taken another leap. It is incredible to hear her talk. It seems as though we are speaking to a small adult. Sometimes we forget that she does not automatically know what everything is called. It always tickles us when she comes in contact with something new and she labels it as something she knows that most closely matches it. Other times she just asks "what is this thing called?"

Jaid helped us pick the color of the paint for her new room. She decided on purple and we compromised with a pretty lilac color. Saturday she helped us as we masked all the trim and cleaned the walls. After nap we stripped her down to a diaper and handed her a roller and let her get to work. She helped us paint for several hours before finally deciding it was time to go play. We finished the room Sunday and she moved in Sunday evening. She was VERY excited about sleeping in her new big girl room. Joe and I barely slept as her new room is all the way at the other end of the hall from ours. We just knew she would wake terrified and calling out for us. But nope she happily slept all night and then in the morning she stayed in her room and played for a bit before coming in to get us. She even seems to be mostly okay with the fact that her old room is now going to be baby brother's room.

A few updates ... Jaida was accepted into the pre-school program we wanted her in. We felt like we were sending out college applications ... so stressful. It is a great program with only 10 kids per class and she will be attending and in the same class as three of her friends which is perfect. Open house is in July ... likely the same time that baby brother is due but we will deal. Jaida's dentist appointment went well. She was very cooperative and let the hygenist clean her teeth and give her fluoride. She then let the dentist poke around at her teeth with no complaints. She had no cavaties which was super and she got her picture taken and put on the perfect teeth wall. She still talks about the dentist and loves to pretend she is our dentist now. :)

Next week we are leaving for California for 10 days. Jaida is VERY excited about the plane ride. After much talk of both visiting/staying with family and visiting Sea World she is convinced that her Grandma, Uncle Dave and Aunt Cheryl all live at Sea World with the Orcas. Jaida is also packing her mouse ears as she is very excited about a possible trip to Disneyland. It should be a great trip ... we all need a little warm weather at this point.

I smell somefing

Apparently, Jaida's sense of smell has kicked in full-force. Unfortunately, the filter in her brain that tells her when she shouldn't blurt out that she smells something unpleasant hasn't. :)

We have many discussions a day ... usually revolving around our dog's fartiness ... about how she smells somefing. According to Jaida I smell good (which is a relief) but the dog's do not. This morning I put a bit of perfume on and Jaida announced that she smelled somefing beautiful. Yesterday however we were in Starbuck's and apparently the person in front of us had a little gas issue. Jaida very loudly announced that she smelled somefing and it smelled stinky. We had to have a little discussion about speaking quietly rather than loudly on the way to the car. :)

Role Playing

Jaida's new favorite game is role playing. For a while this only involved Jaida ... she pretended to be a dog, cat or orca. But now they often involve elaborate scenarios and Joe and myself. Joe is on a research cruise this week so I have Jaida's full attention. Tonight Jaida specifically asked me to pretend to be the big sister so she could be the baby. It was pretty cute. Then we swapped roles. She also loves to be Doctor Jaida. Since Jasper dog is rather gimpy right now with a bad knee she is really enjoying tending to him with her doctor kit. I think it makes him a bit nervous though ... as it should.

Jaida has her first dentist appointment on Thursday morning. I am taking her to a pediatric dentist group here in town that just seems fantastic. This is just a routine check-up meant to get her used to being seen by the dentist. There are no problems that we know of. In fact, Jaida has beautiful straight teeth and a nice bite ... not sure how this happened as both mine and Joe's teeth required a fair amount of orthodontics and are still fairly crooked. She has been dutifully practicing holding her mouth open while I count her teeth. She is hoping she gets a lollipop from the dentist ... I told her she is more likely to receive a new toothbrush ... she does not seem impressed.

Preschool Open House

It has taken me a while to find the right preschool program for Jaida. One where she will be able to work at her own level throughout the program. After much calling around I finally found a program at a local church. We went to the open house last night and Jaida had a blast playing in her new classroom with the other kids. She loved it. The class rooms are bright and cheery and everything is on a miniature level which is too cute for words. I simply felt like a giant. Now Jaida and I get to go stand in line with about 30 other people on Wednesday to try and be one of the ten that gets a slot. Should be interesting.

The good thing about this school is it has a five day a week (2 hours/day) program for 3 year olds. A similar program for 4 year olds and then kindergarten (likely an all-day program) all in the same building. Nancy will be able to drop Jaida off and pick her up for me so my schedule will not have to be altered and best of all Tayler and Jordan (Jaida's friends) will be in Jaida's class with her. I think this will make the transition very smooth for her. The bad part is it is a school affilitaed with a church therefore there are religious aspects that I am not crazy about. I did explain to the director that we are not religious but we do plan to teach Jaida about religion but in our own way. We do not want any one religion forced on her in any way. The director seemed okay with this and said she would do her best to work with us. I actually believe her ... you can tell they all just love the children there and that is what is important. That and the fact that the kindergarteners routinely work at a first to second grade level.

Conversations with a 2.5 year old

Two recent conversations with Jaida come to mind. The first started as we were discussing her new pre-school and how she would be attending this Fall. Her immediate response was "I don't want to fall and get a bump when I am at my school". I explained that Fall is a word that has two meanings. It means tipping over and possibly getting a bump and also a time of year. I explained that the year is divided into four parts ... Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Fall is a couple of months away and is the time of year when she will start going to her new school. She was nodding her head like she understood and then suddenly I hear a little whimper and the words "but mama I don't want to fall and get a bump". We now say she will start school in the Autumn ... she likes this MUCH better.

We also talked about how people in different countries speak different languages. How every object can be called by many different names depending on the language being spoken. I figured this is a concept that we could easily deal with since she is very into saying Spanish words right now and she seems to understand that the colors have an English and Spanish name as do the numbers. So we were talking about all the different ways we can say hello. Hello, hola, salaam, guten tag, namaste, ciao, konnyeje wa, neih hou, etc. She loves practicing this but now thinks she can only say hello to our cat Isis in German ... "guten tag Isis cat" is a common thing to hear in our house.

There is also the forever popular and entertaining public conversation about who she thinks has penises and who has vulvas complete with finger pointing at the individuals . That is an oldie but a goodie. ;)

There are also words that she says that are just fun to say. There are three words that I highly doubt I will ever again be able to pronounce correctly ... hangigurger (hamburger), fridgelator (refrigerator) and froffie (froggie). The alternate pronunciation is just too much fun to say. ;) Oh also referring to cats as maus (meows) ... that has just stuck ... we no longer have cats we have two maus.

The Artist

Jaida is becoming quite the little artist. It is amazing how quickly it has happened also. Just last week she was only drawing rough shapes and now full blown people. I love watching her draw she has to list each part she is drawing as she draws it. So much fun. Her latest creations are daddy (in blue) and mama (in red/pink). These were done all by herself ... no help from us.


She is also drawing cats and dogs. The only real difference between the two is dogs have floppy ears and cats have pointy ears. :) Considering I am likely the least artistic person on the planet I am highly impressed.

Sleep child of mine

dear godzilla please sleep! We are going on two weeks now of very interrupted sleep. It is making us all miserable. We will survive but will not be happy in the process. Why oh why does Jaida have to be such a miserable teether? She is such a great sleeper at all other times but when she is teething sleep goes right in the toilet. She is trying to get the last two of her two-year molars plus half of a third. They just won't come in. I am thinking about giving her a spoon to bite down on to see if she can force them through ... we are getting a little bit desperate here.

It takes forever to get her to sleep at night and involves a great deal of coddling. It seems she knows she is most uncomfortable at night and just doesn't want to go through it alone. So for most nights of the last two weeks Joe ended up camping out on the floor next to her bed or at the very least (if he is lucky) at the top of the stairs reading his book. It takes her a LONG time to fall asleep and she doesn't seem to stay asleep all night. If we are having a good night she just wakes herself up crying and one of us cango in and lay her down and shush her until she falls back asleep. On an okay night Joe ends up camping out on the floor in her room for a while until she finally drifts off. On a not so great night she ends up in bed with me (while Joe is in the guest room) but does fall asleep quickly but wakes early. On a horrible night like last night she ends up in bed with me at 1:15 a.m. and doesn't fall back to sleep until 5:45 a.m. after much flailing, twisting and flipping about. It makes for a rough day let me tell you. I will celebrate in a big way when those teeth come in.

Did I mention that she had her six week appointment with the ENT doctor on Tuesday? Her ears look perfect as did her tempanogram. Her hearing is back into normal range which is super. She is released from his care until 6 months from now when she gets another check-up. This is all barring any ear infections popping up ... but so far so good.

A boundless imagination

It is so fun to watch Jaida when she is engaged in pretend play. There are no limits as to how things can happen. Joe and I often joke that Jaida goes beyond thinking outside the box since technically there is no box. She is not bounded by reality in the slightest which makes her pretend play just too much fun to watch. Scale does not matter. A 3 inch dollhouse figurine can happily co-exist in her pretend world with a 12 inch tall stuffed elephant. They get along well. In fact quite frequently we witness the dollhouse figurine in her little red car which is being pushed about by none other than stuffed elephant. There are also no real differences in animate vs inanimate objects. If she gathers all the people from her dollhouse to go on a trip to the zoo often the toilet or a kitchen chair gets to go along for the ride and enjoy the sights as well. There is the ever popular tea party that always involves an entire menagerie of animals ... frogs, bears, an elephant and a duck. Quite the motley crew but they have one thing in common they all love to attend Jaida's tea parties. Her cuddle blankies can be folded in such a way that they apparently strongly resemble a swaddled baby to Jaida ... she sees a face with a mouth, eyes and hair. She loves to rock these blankie babies and coos them. I guess to her it is the best of both worlds it allows her to indulge in her love of babies while also getting to cuddle her blankie. Joe and I just can't keep up with her ... by comparison our mode of play is so boring.

Jaida loves to trick us now. In fact, being a little trickster is one of her favorite past-times these days. Her and I were sitting reading a magazine the other evening when she points at a picture of a woman in the mag and tells me that she wants that lady for a mommy. When she got a rise out of me she lets out a little evil grin and giggle and tells me "I trick you mommy I am a trickster". She also tricks her daddy but most of the time it involves poop. As in "I have poop in my diaper" but when he goes to change her she yells "I trick you daddy there is no poopie".

Lastly, Jaida LOVES to play hide and seek. For some reason I have a very irrational fear of this game. I just always worry that she is going to hide and not come out and I won't be able to find her. So far though this fear has not been realized since Jaida hides in the same place ... right out in the open ... EVERY single time we play. Finding her is always easy. :)

I just cannot describe Jaida in a way that actually does her justice. She is just a joy to be around. Even on cranky days she honestly does her best to be a sweetie. She is so fun and sweet and smart and funny ... it is hard to describe. Anyhow, we just love her to pieces. We couldn't ask for more.

Happy New Year and Happy News

We had a wonderful albeit very busy month of December. Jaida enjoyed all the preparations for Christmas very much. She was quite intrigued with all the hoopla this year. She helped us pick out the perfect tree, she did a bit of decorating, watched Polar Express MANY times and drank A LOT of hot chocolate. She really got into the magic of Santa Claus this year and made many visits to talk to him. She never sat on his lap but by the last visit she would walk right up to him and tell him what she wanted for Christmas .... usually involved asking for some boys because she likes them (much to her daddy's dismay) along with some books and puzzles. She really enjoyed the ritual of putting a new Christmas Ornament on her Christmas tree advent calander every day first thing in the morning. I think it really helped clear up how many days were left until Christmas for her. She also loved all of the Christmas cards. We exchange greetings with many friends so we usually end up with well over 70 cards ... mostly picture cards of everyone's kiddos. This was a highlight of just about every single day. We would pull into the drive after work and Jaida would request that we stop and grab the mail. I would hand Jaida all the cards and she had a ball opening them and oohing and ahhing over all the kiddos. She had A LOT of fun getting together with her best friend Caleb and playing with him also. They are at such a great age and really enjoy playing together now ... it is fun to watch how different they are.

As the month progressed we were very busy. We did lots of fun Christmas related outings. The week of Christmas Jaida and myself made a road trip to Brooklyn to visit my friend and her twin boys. We stayed overnight and Jaida had a total blast playing with O & T and now considers them her boyfriends. ;) The whole group of us then went to NJ the next day to see a bunch more friends. We had a lot of fun. Christmas Eve we spent most of the day relaxing and then in the evening we met up with our friend's and their son downtown. We spent a few hours walking around the National and Capitol trees and theother lights about town. It was the perfect thing to do on Christmas Eve and we plan to do this as a group every year ... a little family tradition if you will. Then we came home and Jaida arranged some cookies on a platter and put a nice cold glass of milk with it for Santa. We opened a couple of presents each. Jaida opened her new Christmas penguin PJ's and The Winter Tale pop-up book. Joe and I each opened our new Christmas PJ's. Jaida went upstaris for a warm relaxing bath and then she put her new PJ's on and we read the Christmas book to her. She went to sleep and had sweet dreams of her upcoming Santa visit.

Santa came some time during the night and when Jaida FINALLY woke up in the morning we all went downstairs to find the tree all lit up and Christmas carols playing. Santa had eaten all the cookies and drank all the milk ... Jaida was thrilled beyond anything to see this. Santa did leave a scrap of cookie behind and Jaida decided it really shouldn't go to waste so she ate it right up. :) After a minute or so she noticed the beautiful dollhouse Santa left her. She played with it all morning. She took quite a while to get through all the little presents in her stocking and then we had some breakfast. It took Jaida most of the next 4 days to open the rest of her pressents. She really wasn't all that interested in the opening process but did appreciate every single gift. Some of her favorites are a Dora bedtime doll from her Aunt Noa. She saw the Dora text and started vibrating with happiness before she even saw the doll. She also loved the dollhouse although it has a lot of small pieces so often she gets a little frustrated but she will grow into it. She LOVES her doctor's set and comes at us with the syringe many times a day saying "I docor Jaida this will only hurt for a minute" with an evil smile on her face. She also loves a pink cd player and cd of music specially recorded with songs about Jaida on it. This came from Grandma Lylah and Grandpa Don. Every morning she wakes up and first thing she does is push the play button on her cd player so she can hear the "Wake Up Jaida song". It kind of freaks the dog's out a bit ... they recognize her name and think a stranger is in the house with us. Like I said she loves all of her gifts ... those are just the most played with ones right now. My sister Noa and her guy Charlie came over and spent the middle part of Christmas day with us. Jaida really enjoyed seeing her Aunt and Chachie (as she calls him) again. We lost power late in the day on Christmas Day so we postponed our Christmas dinner until Monday which was very nice for Joe and myself. It was quite relaxing. Overall, we had a relaxed and fun Christmas filled with friends, love and laughter ... which is the best kind.

Some funny Jaida things from lately. When Jaida is tired of watching a particular program on Noggin she will tell us "this is not a great show let's turn it off". She dances like a maniac and it is the funniest thing ever to watch. She has a new yoga for kids dvd that she LOVES and she does yoga every single day. It is pretty hillarious to watch. She tells me all the time that her hair is soft and long and that she is beautiful. Not vain at all. ;) She speaks like an adult now but sometimes uses the wrong word so she is just a hoot to talk to and talk she does ... just about constantly. She loves to talk on the phone now and talks to mom and dad while they are at work, to her Aunt Noa and her Grandma Lylah. Jaida is in the process of potty training and has pooped and peed on the potty now. We are just working to make it all happen more regularly at this point.

Happily, Jaida has been cold free so far this winter. I am quite happy about this after last winter. I guess it helps that she now is completely and utterly addicted to purell for her hands. That's our germ-o-phobe girl! ;) Her ears seem to be doing well also. She hasn't had any infections that we know about even though she is getting her last two two-year molars right now and they are giving her a great deal of grief. She goes back to the ENT doctor on Tuesday for a re-check. We are hoping for clean and healthy ears.

Some happy news is that Jaida is going to be a BIG sister! Her new sister or brother http://2006firecracker.blogspot.com/ will be here right around July 4th. We really didn't mention any of this to Jaida but she is an amazingly perceptive child and apparently picked up on the fact that a baby is coming just from some rather cryptic conversations Joe and I were having. The kids at daycare likely mentioned it to her also. One day she suddenly announced she wanted a baby boy. We figured at that point we should prabably talk to her a bit about all of this. Since I started showing really early this time around and we have been listening to the new baby's heart using our doppler it didn't take Jaida long to figure out the baby (or at the very least the baby's heart) is in my tummy. She now loves to tell everyone that the baby is in the baby holder in mama's tummy. Then she promptly whips up her shirt to show the person that there is a baby in her fat tummy also. :) She does seem to love it when we listen to the baby's heartbeat using the doppler but especially loves to listen to her own heart with the doppler. She completely knows how to operate the thing all by herself. Anyhow, this is just another happy addition to our already VERY happy existence. :)

Due to some minor annoyances I might have to password protect this site along with the new baby's site. If this happens just send me a quick email requesting the username and password. My email address is on my main site at gia@gialamela.com.

Brand new ears

not that her original ones were old but they were a bit defective from what we can tell. We made it to the hospital early on Monday morning without even mention of milk which was good since Jaida couldn't have any. She was in fairly good spirits albeit a tad cranky since we had to wake her early for the trip. The pre-op portion of the hospital visit was pretty quick and efficient and soon we were waiting for them to take Jaida back. Unfortunately she was running a low grade fever ... likely from yet another ear infection attempting to take hold. They decided to go ahead with the surgery. Jaida would have no parts of putting a gown on so she had surgery in her fleece pj's. When the anesthesiologist was ready for her she had to leave me and go with the nurse. As you can imagine there was much protesting and screaming involved. About thirty minutes later Dr Urban came out and told Joe and I that he removed her adenoids and put the tubes in. It was a good thing as her adenoids were filled with funkiness and her ears had tons of fluid in them AGAIN. He said she did great. A few minutes later the post-op nurse came out and told us she was starting to come out of the anesthesia. When we got back to post-op she was just starting to get upset. The nurse said she had been just lying there quietly looking around. Mostly she was disoriented and really wanted the IV out of her hand badly. I immediately picked her up and once all the wires and tubes were adjusted was able to sit down in a rocker and she slept in my arms for a couple of hours. It has been a really long time since that has happened and I have missed it a lot. She came to a little bit at a time and tried to drink some apple juice but it combined with the anesthesia just made her really sick. She vomited quite a bit throughout the morning. We went home around noon and after a long afternoon nap she was as good as new. She played and had a wonderful afternoon. She seems to have a real cold sensitivity in her ears now so we need to be much more careful about putting a hat on her and keeping her ears covered when outside. She pretty much hates the ear drops with a passion but she still cooperates when it is time to do it ... she just complains a lot. Hopefully, this will be the end of her ear pain and those tubes will stay in her ears for a while.

Over the weekend we made our annual trip out to Homestead Gardens to look at their holiday displays and see Santa. Jaida enjoyed both very much. Other than that we just had a rather lazy holiday weekend.

This weekend we are going to pick out our Christmas tree. Jaida is quite excited about it.