I tell ya, we were lucky to have survived...

You'll be happy to know that we survived the Blizzard of '09. We were snowed in for a while but thankfully we had the foresight to load up on the milk and bread late Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, I'm not sure we would have had such a happy ending.

That Grace, still sickly but enjoying her first snow. When she woke up, I took her to the front door to show her the snow. I went out and brought some in for her to touch. Nope -- wouldn't go near it. She just kept shaking her head, "no." After breakfast we got dressed (that took a long time) and she went outside. She finally put out one finger and touched a few flakes that had accumulated on her sand table.

Back inside, warm and dry, we pulled out an old activity. She loves to do this but, of course, it requires constant supervision, so I don't leave it our for her.

Feeling Sickly

She really wanted to go outside today. She put on her hat and stood at the door, signing "outside." Unfortunately, she's had a fever for the past couple of days. We had a big weekend planned, including visiting Aunt Donna and Uncle Craig and our cousins from out of state as well as going to a local children's museum. Instead, we had a quiet, cranky day at home.


Since she did so well on the calendar matching activity, I set up the step 1, level 1 Child-sized Masterpieces activity. She did it with ease and we did a few variations before she got tired of it and started throwing the cards.

I was inspired to pull out the easel after reading about the benefits of it over at The Write Start. I bought some paint and brushes to use later this week but for today, we just used markers. She'll write with the markers, but what she really loves is taking the tops off and putting them back on.

Even though it's been extremely cold and rainy today, the ice cream man still drove through our neighborhood. He does everyday, regardless of the weather. He's more reliable than the postman. Rain, ice, freezing temperatures notwithstanding, at some point between 4:00 and 6:00 pm, his truck, with its tinkling melody trailing behind it, will come winding down our street. That Grace loves the ice cream man, but not for the reason you might think. She loves his music. To her, he's the music man. She will drop everything she's doing and head to the kitchen at a dead run for me to pick her up so she can look out window at his truck and sign "music." One day, she'll realize why he's called the ice cream man and we'll be in trouble.

Cold Weather Essentials

Settling in for the cold snap.

We braved the cold for a few necessities and took pity on some birds in the parking lot. We happened to have a few crackers in the car and That Grace threw them to the birds. I was worried they would scare her. They were pretty aggressive and got very close to us. When she was feeding them, she started making this sort of screeching noise. At first, I thought she was afraid, but she didn't look afraid and she kept signing more. I finally figured out she was imitating them. She used to do a lot of animal imitations but she doesn't do it very often anymore.

9 degrees

We had to entertain ourselves inside today, because it was bone-chillingly cold outside. We are simply not equipped to deal with that kind of cold. After the fire died down, That Grace went over to the hearth and dragged another log out, clearly indicating we needed to restart the fire.

We started off the morning eating breakfast with chopsticks. We always eat our bananas and yogurt with chopsticks.



The puppet master at work. These finger puppets and stage were Christmas presents. I bought it because I got a good deal on ebay, but I figured it would be a while before she was really interested in it. I was wrong. She loves this, both watching us do puppet shows and doing them herself.

These boots are really too big but she loves them. She brought them to me and wanted me to put them on her. She has a little trouble walking in them but she manages to tromp around.

Almost 2 is so much fun.