Monday Morning

Starting off the day with Pumpkin Spice doughnuts and family morning devotions.

Elinore finally climbed over the gate yesterday. The upstairs is no place for her to be alone, so I can't consider her "safe," but the gate will still slow her down.

She wore clothes for an hour this morning- I bribed her with a lollipop. Bad mommy.

Backyardigans are her absolute favorite television viewing pleasure. She can ask for some of her favorite episodes with a word or two: Newsflash ( reporters from W_IOWa with breaking news about corn),
Newspaper ( about delivering newspapers in fairy tale village, and Austin thinks the inhabitants all want to eat him), and Robot on a Rampage.

She is also quite impressed with the robot animation on Starfall for the letter r.

Poor child is yelling about being cold, but already took her clothes off again. How do I explain to her that they will help her stay warm?

Dora Candyland

So I decided it's time for Elinore, age 3 and one month, to learn how to play Candyland. My mom gave her the Dora version for her birthday last month.

Kudos to this version for using primary colors that resemble what I am actually using to teach her colors. Here is the process for teaching Elinore how to play this game:

• Look at the color cards and name the colors (yeah, that was all me).
• Look at the picture cards, and locate them on the board. My newly talking 3 yr. old impressed me with her vocabulary: princess, crown, Dora, Boots, Swiper (Swiper gave her nightmares when she was a year old), Pirate Piggies, mermaid.
• Find start, trace the path, find Finish.
• I am exhausted, that's enough for a first lesson on how to play a game.

I would love to show some pictures of Elinore's Dora adventure, but let's see, my newly talking 3 yr. old throws her clothes, shouting, "I don't like it-clothes!!"