The Philadelphia Zoo

9/29/2011

     Today's weather was a fluke. My weather channel app said that it was a 60% chance of rain, which was not the case. I was anticipating a rainy day so we were gonna go to the Please Touch Museum. Since it was soo nice after Two Curious Birds at Nest, and with a phone call from Sarah and Jackson, we decided to go to the Philadelphia Zoo. It's fun to go to the zoo with a toddler because it makes you look at things with a whole new point of view. We only saw the monkey house and the reptile exhibit. We didn't even make it halfway into the zoo. Matilda wanted to mosey around, as usual, and Jackson was running full speed ahead. The two of them are definitely very different temperments.

      We got home from the zoo at 1:30 and after a quick snack and a story, I put Matilda down for her nap. She jumped around and talked for about 15 minutes before falling asleep. She slept for 3 hours again! Why can't she take 3 hour naps when it's my week to cook dinner? lol. Oh well, her nap enabled me to get mostly caught up on the laundry. I would have finished the laundry completely but since B was sick last night, I decided to tear their bed apart and wash the germs away.

When Mat finally got up (at 5:30pm) we had a quick snack of bread and hummus and then headed to the park (with Max). Normally taking Max to the park with us is a lot of work. Chasing after a two-year-old while having a puppy's leash rip your wrist off isn't always ideal. Tonight when we were walking home from the park, Max pooped, which was great! It's always good when he does it out of the house. Unfortunately Matilda decided that she wanted to help me clean it up. In the process she stepped in it, getting it all over her shoe. I cleaned up the rest of it while she played on a metal cellar door. The poop on her shoe eliminated any tread that her shoe would have had and she slipped. At this point I had dog poop on my hand, on her shoe, and on my shirt/hip from where I scooped her up and carried her the remaining 1/2 block home.... Like I said, an adventure. And to make the event even more difficult, Mat started crying again when we tried to take her shoes off. I think all in all she was just overwhelmed by the situation, as was I....

Matilda playing at Starr Garden Park. This is my favorite park to go to on sunny days because it is completely shaded.

This gorilla came right up to the window and stared at Matilda. I was shocked that it didn't scare her.

Browsing around the reptile exhibit.

There were huge tortises!

Still trying to get her to not put her hands into her mouth!!!

Some pictures

Here are some pictures from my past few weeks in Philly!!

Gorgeous sunset during my walk to the Broad Street Line subway. I took lots of pictures of this sunset, all of which turned out blurry, but the colors are still equally beautiful!!!

Philadelphia skyline and Schuykill River!

Mat LOVES painting in her Big, Messy Art class! No matter what the crafts are that we are doing each week, Matilda always looks forward to putting on her smock and creating a masterpiece! She painted a picture last week for her Grandpa which turned out soo awesome I decided to frame it!

October Goals

Now that September is almost over, I would like to present my goals for October.

1. Getting dressed/undressed. A huge part of potty training is being able to take your pants off and put them back on. I have started to work on this with Matilda. I am going to be sure to emphasize Matilda doing this on her own, even if it means taking longer to get dressed or changing her clothes more often during the day.

2. Letter recognition and sounds. In September I took a step back from letters to focus on colors. In October, I will go back to dedicating at least 30 minutes a day to letter recognition.

3. Drawing shapes. Matilda knows her basic shapes. She is able to draw a circle pretty well. This month I want to work on manual skills. Drawing the different shapes is a good way to work on the fine motor skills associated with writing letters.

Park

Today was a beautiful day so we decided to spend the afternoon outdoors at the school playground. Matilda made friends with a little girl and they played together on the playground for over an hour!

Matilda loves to eat vegetables... as long as I pick out all of the Green beans from the mix before I give them to her! Once and a while I'll miss a green bean when filling the containers and when she finds them she's quick to "feed the birds" with them by throwing them onto the ground!! lol.

Mat has this thing where she likes to draw on top of whatever I draw, regardless of what it is. Here you can see where she drew on my alphabet as well as my circles.

This slide was actually really scary! The decline angle from the exterior to the interior was soo steep that you pretty much just wrapped around the center pole. I think I'm gonna stick to going down the straight slides at this school playground.

Mosquito Bites

9/25/2011

I find it amusing that I have received more mosquito bites since I moved to Philly than the whole summer season combined. Thank you hurricane Irene for tripling the mosquito population...

All Settled

09/24/2011

I'm happy to report that things with Mat are going really well. We have settled into our Philadelphia routine just in time for the cold weather to set in. In spite of fighting an obnoxious cold, the days seem to be passing rather quickly.

Here's a brief overview of our weekly Schedule:
Monday: Art class, park, grocery shopping, nap, colors and letter lessons, park again.
Tuesday: Library, park, grocery shopping, etc.
Wednesday: Music Class, park, storytime at Barnes and Noble....
Thursday: Pre-preschool class, park....
Friday: Tumbling and Gross Motor Skills class, playdate with Jackson....

It's amazing how many different things there are to do with a toddler around here. The more classes and events we go to, the more I meet people and find friends for Matilda.

Max, her puppy, is ADORABLE. He makes me want my own dog, but I know I definitely don't have time for my own.

Well, that's all for now. Lots more information and pictures to come!!!