Things Lia can do

I don't think I've been keeping up to date with all of the new things Lia can do. One of my favorite things is to read "From Head To Toe" by Eric Carle. Each page has a different animal and an action that it performs ("I am a penguin and I turn my head. Can you do it? I can do it!"). Lia can do them all. I especially love when she does the buffalo -- it raises its shoulders. She also knows how to arch her back like a cat. Tonight, she repeatedly put her hands and head down to the ground, even when we weren't reading the book.

She can sort of sing. She gets most of the tune for the Barney "I Love You" song (aka, "This Old Man"). When we sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider", she puts her hands together to try to do the motion.

Tonight she was dancing to Chinese children's songs. She kept spinning around and around until she was too dizzy and toppled over.

She still loves stacking and unstacking chairs.

She loves babies and can now say Max ("Maa..sh!") and Dylan. She calls her friend Sydney "Ni Ni". Whenever her teacher has to go to the infant room to cover the classroom, Lia always wants to go. Today the director told me that she told Lia's teacher to go the baby room and that she could either take one or two of the kids in Lia's room over with her or put them in another classroom (under NYS law, there has to be a certain teacher-child ratio at all times in each classroom). Lia looked up and said, "Babies!" so the decision was made to take her over to the baby room. The director also said that there was a new boy in Lia's class starting today. He is 2 years old, so it is understandably difficult for him and he cried and cried. The director said she was holding him and rubbing his back in little circles and Lia came over and copied her and rubbed the boy's back. So sweet!

As I walked into school this morning, she said, "Baa, baa!" Didn't know what she was saying. I started going up to Ian's classroom and she leaned towards the downstairs rooms and screamed, "BAA! BAA!" As I hit the top of the stairs, I saw one of the teachers, Pat, coming up. Lia screamed, "BAA!" Which apparently is her way of saying "Pat". Pat came up to us and Lia threw herself over to her, but Pat had to go to the infant classroom and actually do her job. So I walked downstairs with them so Pat could drop Lia off in her class. We got into the classroom and Pat put Lia down on the florr. Lia started pathetically crying, reaching her arms up to Pat. She wrapped her arms tight around Pat's knees and buried her face in Pat's skirt, still wailing. This went on until I pointed out that Miss Amber was serving bagels with cream cheese for breakfast. Lia lifted her head out of Pat's skirt and perked up, yet continued a more subdued wail. She nodded her head and sat down with one last little wail and promptly forgot about Pat.