Tying Her Shoe

Selena has been up to quite a bit.  Her latest accomplishment is learning to tie her shoe.  She keeps asking to knit a pair of socks.  She's tried some knitting and crocheting, but just doesn't quite have the dexterity yet, so I told her she should learn to tie her shoe first.  She had tried tackling it a few times before and didn't have success, but this time she went and got some instruction from her dad and got really close.  Then she came to me and I suggested that she make smaller loops at the start, and then she did it!  She is super proud and now only wants to wear shoes with ties.

She's also getting better with her reading and writing.  We checked out the Cat the Cat series by Mo Willems and she thinks the books are hilarious and likes them because she can read them.  The words are in a large type-face, which I think really helps beginning readers.  The text is repetitive so there is some memorization going on.  But she loves that she can read Allie books at bed time.  She also can write her own name, Allie's name, and she sounds out some words and gets phonetic spellings of some words.  She did correctly spell nana and papa the other day.

Selena loves making things, especially for other people.  She is always full of ideas for projects and is always wanting to make presents for her schoolmates and classmates.  Her birthday is coming up and she is really excited to make a pinata.   Her drawing is amazing.  She drew a picture of Curious George the other day that was really good.

I switched her car seat from rear facing to forward facing and she has been super excited about that.  She is always telling Allie about all the things she can see.  Allie was a little bummed at first about not being able to do the same, but now seems to enjoy the narrative.

One day we were driving and she was trying to play a game with Allie where she said something and Allie would say the opposite.  But Allie wasn't playing along and she was getting really mad.  We told her that Allie wasn't playing because she didn't know what opposite meant.  Then she proceeded to teach Allie what opposite means--then she asks Allie, "What is the opposite of tree?"  Poor Allie.

She doesn't like princesses.  She gets upset because a girl at school always makes her play princesses.  She says she runs away from her so she won't make her play.  I said she should ask her to play something else.  Selena claims she forgets.  In California she played a lot with a little girl across the street.  One day they played dress up.  Selena said it was a lot of fun until she had to put on the big poofy dress (she was dressed as a pirate before that.)  I wasn't ever a fan of princesses or Barbie's either so I remember what it was like.

She did say she liked playing horses with the girl at school.  I asked her how they play horses.  Selena says, "I am the horse and she rides on me."  Then she is silent for a little bit and says, "We only play that when the teacher can't see us."  I ask her if they are allowed to play horses and she says, "I don't know, the teacher never said, but I'm not sure..."