A Maxine Update

Maxine is becoming more entertaining every day, and I am not doing a very good job of documenting it. And so here is a typical Roblog attempt to put way too much information into way too small a space at the last minute:

Potty Time! A few nights ago I came home from work, and Horyon told me that Maxine had left a present for me in the bathroom. I could smell it as soon as I walked in. She had urinated and defecated in her little potty! I was very proud, though I'm not sure if I would have been proud enough to preserve that particular trophy.

Horyon has been spending a lot of time with Maxine in the bathroom, reading books with her and encouraging her to sit on her little potty. Today she actually asked to use her potty for the first time! Always before it was at our suggestion. Stephanie, Maxine's daycare provider, has told us that Maxine is good with the potty while there, but it's not the same has having success here at home.

In general, Maxine is becoming more coordinated. She is less likely to drop things, and is better able to handle them. She still has a problem eating eggs on toast, though. She still tries to eat the egg off the top by tilting the toast up, so half the time the egg falls into her big [sorry! I meant bib!] pouch. She would probably be better off with a fork, but she wants to eat it like Daddy does, so we're stuck. Because I'm not going to change my egg-eating style just to keep her eggs from taking a detour through her bib.

The biggest improvements we've seen are in her language skills. She is talking more all the time, and constantly adding words and phrases to her vocabulary, as well as polishing up her pronunciation. She still sings the Barney song "Clean Up" as "Cleamup," but it's pretty cute, so we let it go. "Thanks" has been added to "Thank you," as has "You're welcome." She likes to use "Please" as well, and we encourage her to use all three. Being polite is an essential skill that seems to be somewhat out of vogue these days.

She's enjoyed phone conversations for some time now, though she hasn't quite worked on the same level as the rest of us. I think she still doesn't realize that she is actually talking to another person when she talks on the phone--she just doesn't interact the same way she does face-to-face. But it's getting there. And she can do a pretend phone conversation really well. Her favorites to talk to are Grandma and Grandpa. She nods a lot, says, "Uh-huh", "Yes" and "No", and tells the pretend person what she is doing.

In fact, she doesn't need a phone to tell people what she is doing. Sometimes it's like there's a constant running commentary, keeping us up to date on what Maxine is doing. She hasn't got the grammar down exactly right yet, so it comes out "I running" or "My go," but the idea is there.

She is going to daycare three days a week with Stephanie, a wonderful woman who does it out of her home. Her rates are very low, only $18/day, but she lives about 16 miles from our home. She recently moved, because she wanted to give her kids (both her offspring and her charges) a more accurate taste of nature. She's planning some nature trails, and just going outside there is a noticeable lack of traffic noise and city smells. She plans age-appropriate activities, prepares healthy meals, teaches social skills, and doesn't let the kids watch more than half an hour of t.v. per day. We've been told that Stephanie's husband makes enough money for them to live off of, and that she does this because she loves doing it. We think it's worth the one-hour round trip drive, especially since we carpool with Sofia from down the block. And most especially since Sofia's mother picks up Maxine in the morning so neither of us has to do the morning drive thing.

Maxine is starting to solidify the concept of different activities for different days of the week. She knows that Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she goes to Stephanie's, Tuesdays and Thursdays she goes to Small World (though not while KU is on vacation), and Sundays she goes to Church. I don't think she has an ordered concept of which day comes after which, but she's getting there.

There are doubtless many details I am leaving out, but I need to get this post up so that I can work on a Christmas post. So I'll leave you with one last picture to embarrass Maxine when she is older. Peace!!!