Last night Alex read a book to me!!! It was part of her homework and it was a fairly basic book called On Stage . It had sentences like - “He is a musician. He plays the violin. He is on stage.” She stumbled over a couple of works such as, magician and musician, but otherwise read it perfectly. I had no idea that she could read so well - I think she’s been keeping it a secret so I will keep reading to her.

Alex is completely obsessed with the Wizard of Oz. She puts on her costume almost everyday after school and loves the movie. At first she was afraid of the witch and the flying monkeys and we would skip those parts, Now, however, she isn’t scared at all and wants to watch the entire movie. She’s actually laughing at the lion right now. And she hasn’t changed her mind about being Dorothy for Halloween.

Last weekend we found her a beautiful picture book of the story. It’s long so we’ve been reading a little bit of each night before she goes to bed. We’re up to where Dorothy and the lion fall asleep in the field of poppies.

It is well known and documented that Kim has a habit of reading during meals while at the kitchen table - this irks me to no end.

Yesterday Kim, Alex, and I were in Starbucks Coffee when for a few moments Kim left the table. Alex was perusing the free newspapers near us, grabbed the classifieds, returned to her seat across from me, and with a sort of clever grin said, “I be Kim…” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

Alex is really starting to communicate with us on a new level. The other night I was sitting on her floor and she brought over some reading material and said “Read da book” very clearly and distinctly. I was so impressed and proud.

I am also very happy that she is displaying interest in things other than Elmo and the Teletubbies lately. She is naturally inquisitive about everything she sees and pays alot of attention to the little things around her. Thankfully, she is very respectful of our belongings, although last night she was poking around in my closet and the Boba Fett collection I have situated there. It takes a bit of prodding to get her to leave certain things alone, but she eventually gets the picture that something is not to be touched. I can’t wait for the day when she comes barreling out of our room with something precious I keep on the top of my bureau. Luckily, she is a tiny little monkey with not enough reach to grab certain things.

Alex has been spending a lot more time playing by herself and I noticed this week when peeking in on her that her play has become more interactive. Of course, she loves to look at books and she is usually sitting in a chair or on her boppy looking at books. She likes it when I take ALL of her books down from her shelves so she has a huge pile to sit in the middle of and spread around. But she is now also playing with other toys - she has a Fisher Price Little People train with animals that you can out on and off that she got for her birthday. She will push the train back and forth and pull the animals off. The other day I saw her pull the tiger off and then move him around like he was dancing to the music playing on the radio.

Alex also likes to play music class - she has a bag of instruments and we will play on of the cd’s from her class while she bangs on the instruments. Yesterday, however, she was more interested in collecting the instruments, putting them in a basket, taking them out and starting over again. This was odd because so far I haven’t really been able to teach her to pick anything up. My guess was that she was imitating Mr. Larry, her music teacher, walking around the room and collecting the instruments and putting them away. The again maybe not but I’m not sure what else was going on in her mind.

Here is a picture of the little people train.

Yesterday Alex figured out how to open the cd-rom drive on my computer and did it three times. I wasn’t too happy about this development but fortunately she hasn’t done it today. She could break it really easily. I’m sure for her it’s a lot of fun to push a tiny button and have something come shooting out.

Alex also really likes to look at magazines and catalogs. Yesterday she picked up a free magazine when we at the cafe down the street. I let her hold on to it and when she was riding in the stroller on the way home she had it open in her lap and was flipping through the pages. A college-aged student came up to me and said that it looked so funny coming up the street because it really looked like a little baby was seriously reading the magazine. I hope this love of books and magazines continues and that Alex likes to read as much as I do.

Last week I decided Alex and I needed to do something other than go to the park (even though we have a lot of fun there) so I took her to Center City to go to the library. There is a library closer but the one we went to has a wonderful children’s area. Alex had such a good time! At first she was really entertained by the bins of board books but it didn’t take her long to realize that the whole room was full of books, tapes and cd’s and that everything was kid sized. After she pulled way too many things off of the shelves I decided we should probably get going. I checked out a couple of board books for her … she was excited to have something new to read (as was I). I think 30 minutes is the current limit for the library. I considered getting Alex her own library card but I decided to wait until she is older when she knows she is getting one and is able to take a little more responsibility for things.

After the library we went to the park for a little while before heading home. Alex really likes this park because it has a lot of dogs and birds. She had a good time even though I was a scatterbrain. For example, I though I lost the cell phone and asked the maintence man if he had found one. He then used his phone to call mine to see if someone answered. Was I surprised when I started ringing … the phone was in my pocket the whole time. Doh!!!

On Monday I discovered that Alexandra understands a lot more that I realized. I was reading to her and decided to ask her where certain objects were that she was familiar with such as cat, dog, bird, etc. to see if she could point them out to me. I didn’t really know if she would but most of them she did!!! She understands a lot more than it seems like because she doesn’t really talk yet (at least not in any language I can understand). I guess I better be really careful about what I say around her Now Marc and I keep doing this but I think she is getting a little annoyed - ok, I know where the cat is - just read me the story. It’s funny too - when I say where’s the cat she usually looks around the room for our cat Carly before realizing I mean in the book.

Yesterday a Mom at the park was playing with Alex and really threw her for a loop by giving her compound instructions like - put the leaves in the bucket. Either that was too much for Alex to understand or she choose to ignore the instructions because she was plotting about how to get down the slide without me.

Alexandra has really started to love books - looking at them, not just eating them She can be racing around and if I pick up one of her books she will come sit with me and listen to the story. We found that books are the best thing to bring to get her through church - they seem to work even better than a bottle. When Marc and I have dinner Alex has already had dinner so sometimes she sits in her chair and has cheerios or some of what we’re having but she usually plays on the floor in the kitchen instead (actually she likes to climb under the table). The other night she left the kitchen and I asked Marc to see where she went - she had gone into her room and was quietly looking at a book - she likes to look at the pictures as well as see how fast she can turn the pages. And she stayed there “reading” while we finished dinner - this is really odd for such a physically active kid. And then last night I put her to bed and she decided to play for a while rather than go right to sleep. There was a book in her bed (I put one there because it entertains her for a long time when she wakes up in the morning) and I went to check on her a little later she was sleeping on top of the book. I guess she fell asleep reading

On Saturday afternoon Alexandra did something that she had never done before - she initiated having a story read to her. Marc was playing with her in her room and she went over to her shelves, pulled down two books, and then sat in Marc’s lap. She was definately telling him to read her a story. She really loves books and is getting a lot better about not chewing them up. This is the first time, however, that she has initiated an activity other than crawling away when you are trying to get her dressed.