Mighty Mississippi

My parents left this evening but before they did my Dad wanted to take a walk and visit the Mississippi. We drove over to the Ford Parkway bridge on the Minneapolis side and walked around and across it. I only had my phone with me but we had never been there and I saw some interesting things so today cell phone photos will have to do! At least I took the first few with the app that makes them look all "arty" ;-)

We walked across the bridge first... a half naked guy zoomed up into the picture, but that's ok!

It's interesting that you can cross a bridge in the car many, many times and never really appreciate how enormous it really is, and how much work must have gone in to constructing it. When you're underneath it, it's a very different perspective!

We watched the scum floating about in the river and Fiona chattered away about all kinds of things, then we walked a little further down to the lock and dam. Turns out you they have a whole big area that's open to visitors where you can watch the lock and dam working and it's really interesting.

There are two locks, and I think they have some kind of generator in the other part of the river.

The lock on the left was in operation, but not the one on the right.

Boats coming in, waiting...

Here you can see the difference in water levels (and a couple of leaks).

Fiona is getting to be old enough to start understanding and having an interest in things like this, and it was fun to explain to her how locks and dams work and watch her figuring it out. It was a great surprise activity and I bet we'll be back again soon to just walk around and watch the boats.

Photo Challenge Day 15

One of the reasons I am enjoying this challenge is that it is forcing me to learn how to do new things with my camera. Today's challenge is silhouette and I've always loved silhouette pictures of people but did not have any idea how to actually take one myself! So I turned to trusty old google and found this nice list of tips. I tried to take some pictures earlier today with the morning sun coming in the front window, but the sun was too high and the tree across the street was in the way (and the window was filthy - I have no idea how that happened!) so this evening I made Ben and the girls take a walk to the park so I could try to take some more in the low sun.

It was a beautiful evening and I accidentally took this one, which I love!

And I also managed to get this one of Adele. I am so pleased with how these turned out, and will be taking a lot more in the future!

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 15: Silhouette

Adele learns new tricks

Adele is doing really well in Physical Therapy. She has two people who come out - one is the PT who comes every 2 weeks, and the other is a case manager who comes once a month to see how she's doing in all other areas, and give advice and ideas etc. Both ladies are wonderful, and have been a great help to her.

We have periodic goals for things we want her to do by the next visit, and the last one was for her to be crawling at least 5 feet on her hands and knees. The visit was this morning and she pulled it out at the last minute! Yesterday she started crawling on hands and knees! She still defaults to belly crawl, so we have to work on it more, but she's doing it! Check her out!

She started out doing this goofy hoppy crawl...

But she quickly got the idea that she should move her knees with her hands...

Today the other teacher who comes gave me some handouts about oral-facial exercises and games to strengthen her face muscles to help her with talking (I know, who knew you could do exercises for that?!) but then at dinner time Adele made it pretty clear that her oral-facial muscles were working quite well already...

I'm hoping this is not going to be her new favorite game!

Fiona and her big brain

Fiona gets more clever every day. If she keeps learning at this rate I think she'll be ready for university by the time she's 8 or 9... She's developing all kinds of reasoning and deductive skills and makes connections and figures things out that surprise me all the time.

We were in the car last week and she told me she'd like to dance on the moon. Here's how that conversation went...

Fiona: Fiona want to dance on the moon

Me: You have to be an astronaut to dance on the moon. You need to work hard in school, go to university, study all kinds of physics, and get a job with NASA as an astronaut. Then you can dance on the moon.

F: Fiona dance on the moon Mummy!

M (sensing that my previous response was not adequate): The moon is too far away to dance on. It's up very high.

F: Plane goes up high in the sky! Fiona go on plane, dance on the moon!

I was very impressed with this! A moon-plane! Genius! She really could work for NASA!

She also learned how to ride a tricycle. She loves to look at bicycles and will count 'one, two wheels, handlebars, one, two pedals'. She really likes her tricycle and even gets excited to wear her helmet. Here's an adorable picture :-)

Another cute thing she does is want to sing happy birthday. She loves birthdays, and after people have birthdays she insists on singing happy birthday to them well past their actual birthday. We sing songs before she goes to sleep at night and she's adapted happy birthday to be kind of a review of what's particularly important or interesting to her at the moment. Here's an abbreviated rundown of the development of happy birthday, and some explanations...

(When we sing it, we sing it like "Happy Birthday to Fiona, Happy Birthday to Fiona, Happy Birthday dear Fiona, Happy Birthday to Fiona" since the name part is the most fun!)

We began with...

Happy Birthday to Fiona (she liked her own name, thought it was funny)

Happy Birthday to Audrey (her friend had a birthday party, she was very excited about "Audrey's Happy Day")

Happy Birthday to Daddy/Mummy/Dell/Brodie... etc. etc. (nice)

Happy Birthday to Thomas (really likes Thomas the Tank Engine)

Then more recently...

Happy Birthday to Monty's Big Owie (Monty had surgery and has a big owie)

Happy Birthday to Brodie's Poo (we're potty training and it's all about poo)

Happy Birthday to Emmy Catch a Fish (her cousin Emily was catching fish with her in the lake at Grandma and Grandpa's house)

Happy Birthday to Fish Bite You (Ben was bitten by the same fish)

(Here's a fish picture)

There have been others too, we sing something different almost every night, and it's always an entertaining window into what her little brain is thinking about at the moment :-)

However, she was unable to identify this week's Vegewhatable?! So it's up to you...here it is!

Any ideas? Please don't tell me it's a cucumber!

Smarty Pants

So the right thing to do as a parent is to teach your child things... right? But what happens when they take what seemed like a cute thing to do, and run with it? No, really, I'm asking... Fiona has developed a number of habits that I'd prefer not to continue. At least in public.

Case number 1: 'On your head' game.

We play a cute game that I imaginatively call 'putting stuff on your head'. Here's how it works... you put something on your head... a block, stuffed animal, lego container... whatever. Fiona giggles like crazy and takes it back off your head. Aww, cute.

Then Fiona learned that she can put stuff on her own head. So smart!! She likes to put the lego box on her head then play peekaboo... here's a video.

I know! Adorable!

But... then she started putting other things on her head... like the bowl her dinner was in...

Disaster.

Then she wants to cuddle, and before you kow it, I'm covered in food too.

Case 2: "Where's Fiona's belly button"

What began as a cute game of 'find your belly button' has evolved into a horrifying public peepshow. Fiona is now determined to prove that everyone else also has a belly button, and look, there it is, she found it. In addition to that, after she's pulled my shirt up, she likes to lay her head on my naked tummy and cuddle...

but sometimes she'll decide my tummy looks good enough to eat, and will start licking me, which more often than not turns into chomping on my sensitive tummy flesh. Weird, I know. And not appropriate public behaviour!!

Case 3: Banging on the keyboard.

Ben found some fun baby games online where things pop up and noises happen when you bang on the keyboard. Unfortunately now Fiona gravitates towards the keyboard whenever she sees it. We listen to music and dance a lot during the day, and as a result, many of our songs/folders in iTunes now have exciting new names...

Awesome.

Case 4: Cuddles.

Fiona loves Brodie. And Brodie loves Fiona. Fiona has recently learned how to give cuddles. But mostly she just gives them to Brodie. It's super cute, but I'm starting to feel bad for Brodie...

Then again, he can move significantly faster than her, so it would be easy for him to excuse himself if he'd had enough. I guess I'll just keep encouraging this one :-)

So there you have it. Too smart for hor own good. And for my good, and for the good of public decency. It's mostly quite adorable. The biting has to stop though, I'm starting to look like I've been mauled by a Tiger.