This morning's Toddler Treasures reading time at the library was all about bears. Connor loves bears, thanks to his father who is forever talking about getting one for general household mauling purposes, and so the little guy was a very enthusiastic participant at today's story reading. One of the books, The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry And The Big Hungry Bear, by Don and Audrey Wood, is one of my personal favorites, and Connor is very familiar with it since we have it at home. Normally at story time he very quickly gets bored and starts staring at everything but the books and me interpreting, but this time he was pretty focused, and when the librarian asked if anyone knew what to do about the big hungry bear, Connor gave a big enthusiastic nod yes! It's exciting to see that he's starting to be a little more comfortable with the toddler time, and that he's following my fumbling signing enough to be able to answer questions. And I'm happy to say that the trip up there was totally, completely uneventful. There will be NO repeats of last week, thank you very much.The other book was Jamberry, by Bruce Degan. I love that book, except for the fact that I have to fingerspell Razzamatazzberry. Oh well.
Since it was kind of gloomy and rainy outside this afternoon, we promptly threw on our swimsuits and went down to the pool. Since the Puyallup area has next to no thunderstorms, I'm still a little unsure as to why everyone always leaves the pool when it looks like rain, as it's not like you aren't going to be wet anyway. If it was sunny the day before, as it was yesterday, the water will still be warm. At any rate, gloomy weather assures that Connor and I will have the pool all to ourselves, which is a good thing. Connor loves the water so long as he's in total control of what it's doing. Other kids splashing around so the water jumps and gets his face or hair wet unexpectedly is a big no-no in his book. The pool is also kind of an echo chamber-- even outdoors-- so if there are too many other people there than he gets overwhelmed pretty quickly. He can't have his hearing aids on at the pool and I can't really sign and hold him at the same time, so it's probably pretty hard for him to understand what I'm saying. At any rate, we spent about half an hour in the pool before he started getting cold and we dried off and went home. I'm loving having a pool so close to the house; I don't think we'd go very often otherwise, and it really is very good for Connor.
~Jess
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3 comments:
Ah, yes. That's always been one of my favorites as well! Looove the illustrations. A giant strawberry. I wants it.
Oh, I love the bear/mouse/strawberry book. I first heard it at our library story hour- it's one I've been meaning to buy!
We were in an infant/parent swim class for a while, but there were 15 toddlers and the noise level was insane. Nolan couldn't hear anything, I couldn't sign anything, and he's so skinny that he would turn blue within 3 minutes (the local Y was only heating the pool to 75 degrees- pretty cold for a Buffalo winter)! So we've given up on the swim classes for now. Though I might try again in a year or two!
Sweet Lorraine: Of course, Jer always has to make comments at the end about how the bear can get the red, ripe strawberry by eating both the mouse and the narrator. Gotta watch out for those loopholes.
leah: I grew up with it; it's a big favorite of mine!
I hear you on the chilly swimming pools-- we had that problem last year when we tried swimming at a supposedly heated indoor pool which turned out to be anything but warm. Connor's got some pretty significant temperature regulatory issues, so we have to be careful about stuff like that.
~Jess
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