Amateur Photographer

Mom and I didn't know it but Alyce is an aspiring photographer.  Since Mom upgraded her iPhone to an iPhone 4 Alyce has been the recipient of her old one.  We took the SIM card out of it so it no longer makes telephone calls but it makes for a great device to watch movies and play games.  iPhones also have built in cameras and we hadn't thought to look at the list of photos as we didn't think Alyce knew how to use the camera.

Mom and I a few days ago while upgrading the phone took at look at the photos and were greeted by album upon album of pictures.  Most of them were taken during her quiet time at both the old house and the apartment.  Some have a obvious subject and others were taken while she was under her sheets.

The best pictures in the album were of the princesses on one of her books.  The cover is a picture of all of the princess but with each exposure Alyce focused on a different princess.  They were surprisingly well composed.  If finger painting doesn't work out for her perhaps she should try her hand at photography.

Can't Keep a Secret

Last week the first of my gifts for Mom arrived in the mail.  I'm ok to write about it since she told me what she wanted and saw the box before I got home.  Alyce was also there when the box arrived and wanted Mom to immediately to open it.  Mom delayed her because it had my name on it and said they needed to wait until I came home.  As I walked in the door Alyce runs up to me telling me there is a box for me and that I should open it.

I told her that we could open it but we had to do it upstairs because Mommy couldn't see it.  Upstairs I took the present out of the box and showed it to Alyce.  Alyce exclaimed that is was "very pretty".  I told her that it was a present for mommy from Luke and her and that we couldn't tell her what she was getting as it was going to be a surprise.

Following our quick little discussion Alyce went back downstairs.  Mom in jest asked Alyce what was in the box.  Alyce responded excitedly "it's a necklace for you"!  Note to self; 4 year olds can't keep secrets.

Omission

Now that we are living in an apartment whenever we head out to the car we have to unlock it. Mom and I both have buttons on our key chains that allow us to unlock the doors remotely. In addition we can open the door by entering a code on a panel on the drivers side door.

Alyce has now taken it as her job to run up ahead of us while heading out to the car to enter the code and open the doors. One thing missing from her plan is that she doesn't know the code; instead she blindly hits keys. While she's doing that Mom or I reach into our pockets and hit the unlock button. Alyce thinks she has just unlocked the door, opens it, and climbs in none the wiser that in fact we did it for her.

It might be bad that we are keeping the truth from her but by her entering in the code she isn't running into the parking lot. I would say we are guilty of the crime of omission but we are doing it with the best of intentions.

House Construction

It's been three weeks since construction began on our new house. In that time the foundation has been poured, framed, and roofed. As part of the fun and to check for defects we take the family out to the site for walkthroughs.

Alyce is a big fan of this as she gets to see her new room or the space that will be her new room. She enjoys waving to Mom from her window the most.

One time Alyce had to use the bathroom so we took her to the display to do her business without her walking through. Mom and I thought we could get away with skipping her turn. We thought wrong. Upon hearing that we were going to dinner rather than taking her turn led to an immediate and intense break down. Mom and I tried out best to cheer her up such as letting her try on a hard hat but looking at the picture obviously that failed.


In the end we caved and quickly brought her through the house. It seemed to do the trick as she was a happy camper the rest of the night.

Making Her Own Stories

In the past few days I've noticed a change in Alyce; she is starting to make her own stories.  Last night we cooked dinner over at Gram's and Papa's and they handed me a piece of junk mail that had my name on it but their address.  Most likely because we forwarded a few magazines to their house while we are living in the apartment and our new information hit a junk mail list.  When we got home Alyce asked if she could open up my mail and I agreed she could.  The junk mail was an advertisement for a home security system and one of the pages at the top there was a picture of a fire truck and a police car.  Alyce, sitting in my lap pointed out the police car and fire truck and described aspects about them such as fire trucks are loud.  She then proceeded to turn the page over to the blank side and started talking like she was reading a book even through there was nothing there.  The story she was telling focused on firetrucks that were red, were loud, and come by our house every day.  The story was only a few sentences long but every time she'd tell it she would add another aspect to it like there being more than one fire truck or police cars driving by too.

Earlier in the night while at the dinner table we were all talking about something that isn't important to the story with each person getting a turn to talk.  When it became Alyce's turn to talk she started going off on some tangent where most of her words either didn't make sense or were being mumbled.  This went on for maybe 20 seconds with the rest of the table just staring at her like lobsters were coming out of her ears.  After those 20 seconds she just stopped, looked at us, and said "I'm gonna be funny.  Bwak, bwak, bwak".  "Bwak" being the sound a chicken makes.  And while she is making her chicken noises she puts her hands in her armpits and flaps her arms like a chicken.  It was hilarious!  After she finished she asked the rest of us to do it too so going around the table we all made chicken noises, flapped our arms, and Alyce giggled the entire time.

Alyce is now making her own stories and her own humor.  I give the credit to her being older and to preschool.  I think her being in a structured environment with teachers trained in educating preschoolers has done wonders for her development.  I couldn't be prouder of her.

Helping Grandma

Today we went out to my home town to see Onermark Grams. It had been some time since we had last been out there as a family and thought a day outside of the apartment would be great.

While there we helped with a few chores. The first chore we tackled was to bundle up all the dead wood grandma had cut down days earlier. Alyce wanted to join in on the fun and started grabbing single sticks and depositing them in the yard waste bag. Every time she'd find a stick Alyce would say "I found another one" and drop it off. Later she noticed that I was cutting sticks down to size to fit better and she then wanted me to cut every one of her sticks in two because they were too big.

Following the stick removal Mom and Alyce were taking turns running around the house. Hearing the giggles of a 4 year old as she runs around the house is probably one of the greatest sounds ever.


The last job of the day was to rake some leaves and empty some pots on the back patio. The leaves on the patio can get pretty thick and it makes for some great piles for kids to run through. While we were moving around the table and chairs Alyce too a shot at raking a few leaves herself. She had mixed success but we appreciated the effort and it made for some cute pictures.

New Sheets

One of the gifts Onermark Grams gave Alyce for her birthday was a set of princess sheets. For the past few days Alyce has been hounding Mom to put the sheets on her bed. Mom has been putting her off by saying the sheets needed to be washed before she could use them.

Tonight while I was washing the dishes after dinner Alyce drops a package of sheets in front of the washing machine. I asked Alyce what she was doing and she said "I'm putting these here so that Mommy will wash them".

For the record Mom has them in the wash now.

That's Not Food

Tonight was my night to get Alyce ready for bed. When it was time to get her into her jammas we couldn't find them. While looking around the house Alyce says "I didn't eat them. They are not food".

Jammas. They are not food.

Halloween

Tonight was Halloween but the Halloween festivities weren't just limited to Sunday.  The entire weekend had sprinkles of Halloween fun.

Starting Saturday we went to the Boo at the Zoo at the St. Louis Zoo where we met up with our friends Josh, Tammy, and Gideon.  The Boo at the Zoo is an event at the zoo where everyone dresses up in costume and gets candy from so local radio stations etc.  Everyone in St. Louis must go to this event because by the time we arrived the parking lot was full and the traffic around the zoo was a mess.  Luckily we found a parking spot a few blocks away and after a short walk we were in.  Walking around the zoo most of the animal displays weren't that crowded as everyone was in line waiting for candy.  I'm sad to say they were wasting their time.  The lines for the candy were upwards of an hour long.  We decided early on to skip the candy but by luck we happened to walk past a candy station and got a handful.  Looking at the meager loot in Alyce's bag I was pleased that we didn't wait.  There were six pieces of taffy so hard they were inedible and a pack of sweet tarts.

Following lunch and the primate enclosure we walked past the bears and that is where Alyce fell apart.  I'm not sure what exactly happened but something set her off and she burst into tears.  We knew it was time to go at that point and Alyce didn't stop crying until we reached the car about 10 minutes later.  Pretty much everything she thought of was something to cry about; missing Gideon, not seeing the giraffes, and not wanting to leave the zoo were prime examples.  As we pulled away from the zoo area Alyce regained her composure and after a decent nap back at the apartment she was back to her old self.  I'm guessing she was just overtired.

To close, on Saturday I'd say that Boo at the Zoo was a bust and I doubt that we'll ever go back.  It just wasn't worth the hassle.

Tonight was a lot more fun.  After some naps from the kids they were ready to go trick or treating.  We went out to our old neighborhood as apartments are horrible places for getting candy.  Meeting up with old neighbors was great and Alyce seemed to enjoy seeing her friends again.  After a quick bite to eat it was time for some trick or treating.  Alyce was able to keep up with all of her friends this year.  As they were running from house to house Alyce was running with them.  At first she wasn't leading the charge but after a while she wanted to get up to the front because she wanted to "knock on someone's door."  It was awesome to see my little shy girl announce her opinion and make sure it happened.  She ended up moving to the head of the mob and sure enough she knocked on / run the doorbell of a few houses.  She picked up saying "trick or treat" at every door from the other girls and even started saying "thank you" without me having to say anything.  By the time we made a loop through the neighborhood Alyce had a significant pile of loot.  Enough candy for Alyce to say that her arms were getting tired holding it.  Later in the evening we finally got a look at how much she received and I will say this, kids nowadays get awesome candy.  She had 5 full sized candy bars plus a stack of other premium candy like fun size Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  There was not a single piece of cheap candy in the bag.

So Maybe This Wasn't a Good Idea

Tonight the family decided to save a few dollars and stay in rather than go out to eat.  As part of the evening we decided to watch a movie with Alyce after we put Luke to bed.

The movie we watched was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The movie was pretty good and Alyce seemed to be enjoying herself up until the end. Then a combination of peril in the movie and her being overtired put Alyce in tears. She was worried about what was going to happen to the main character. We tried to reassure her that everything was going to be ok but it took until the of the movie for her to be convinced.

Following the movie it was close to 9:45 and Alyce was so tired that she couldn't keep herself together and the smallest infraction would lead to tears.  Luckily I coaxed her into to bed and was able to cut off her ramblings so she'd finally roll over and go to sleep.

Maybe we shouldn't have let her stay up that late. Next time we'll get the movie started earlier and with a bit less peril.