It's been a while

So, it's been quite a while since I last posted. I didn't take a look at when the last one was, but I know it's a while.

Mariko is crawling up a storm and working on walking. I think that it still might be another couple of weeks, but she's really working on it and she finally will walk while holding on to only one hand. She's had a couple of moments of standing on her own and has taken one step - as she was falling towards me - so I think we are getting close! I'm ready for it!! After 11.5 months of not crawling I was ready for that, and now at 14.5 months I'm ready for her to start walking.

Things that are new with us: Mariko talks all the time. She has probably 25 words that she uses on a regular basis and she imitates everything she hears, especially last words of sentences. This afternoon before putting her down for her nap I was singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm and she was staring at my lips and then trying to mimic all the sounds I was making! She is an incredible little girl.

Montessori wise I have kind of expanded to two places in the house. I think that I might need to go back to downstairs being more fun toys, although it's mostly that way now. Things that serve more of a purpose are upstairs in her Montessori area, plus the addition of the bean bag put n' take which can also be used to throw bean bags for when she needs that. Upstairs right now she has bean bags, open and close work, put n 'take with popsicle sticks, animals that we are working to identify, something that I'm forgetting!, coin box with drawer, pounding tower, stacking rings and of course teethers. She also has a giant book that pushing the animals makes sounds and she loves the box with musical instruments that plays music.

Downstairs right now she has fun things but they are hopefully helping her learn. First her kitchen basket and balls which are probably her favorite. She loves those two baskets and spends lots of time with them which is good. Downstairs is a place we spend a fair amount of time since it is used before and after meals when I'm cleaning up. She has plastic eggs to place in an egg tray, her broom and dustpan and duplos on one side. On the other she has three rings on a peg - she has mastered putting them on the peg but hasn't figured out order yet (same with the rainbow rings upstairs), 3/8 stacking cups, put n' take with buttons which she's had forever and LOVES and of course some books.

Mariko has moved to one nap which has allowed us to do more things in the morning. Although I resisted the one nap at first, it really makes outings easier since we don't need to be home until close to noon for lunch and then nap around 1. The nap might need to be moved earlier since she's been waking so early! When she first flipped to one nap she was waking to eat around 5:30 or 6 am and then sleeping until 8! Now she's been waking between 5:00 and 6:00 and is ready for the day. I'm not happy about that though, it's too early! I'm hoping for 6:30 or 7 as her wake time as she gets settled in to this new routine. She is currently napping and has been asleep for 2 hours which is awesome. A good solid nap.

It is so fun watching Mariko work and learn. I love it when she works on something for a long time to figure it out and when she's ready, her concentration is amazing. This morning she figured out how to open the plastic eggs. She opened every single one of them and then tried to put them back together - that's the hard part! Watching her concentrate is incredible and so amazing.

Toshi and I have been talking about kid #2. We want them to be about 2+ years apart, although if we are going with only 2 kids as I want, they can be a little farther apart than that. I don't really want to be pregnant while we are moving and getting settled so that may be the deciding factor. I don't really want to be pregnant again, but I do want at least one more kid and I think that Mariko will make an awesome older sister.

We still have not heard if Mariko will be getting in to one of the schools that she is on the waitlist for for when we are in Denver. There are three schools and we have her on the list for all three for the toddler rooms starting at the beginning of August. As hard as it will be, I think it will be really good for her once she gets settled there and meeting new people/kids will be good for her. When we go to Denver the first week in June we will get a chance to visit the schools and I'm looking forward to that! That is going to be a scary time though because it's all going to be so real - I don't think it's really hit me yet that we are moving and SO SOON!

Ok - that's all for now!