Saturday, October 3, 2015
Little Communicator
Zoey is a really great communicator. I've always had a very easy time understanding her and I finally put my finger on exactly why.
We took her to the beach today. As we were leaving, I was carrying her.
I asked her, "Zoey, did you have fun?" She looked me in the eye, nodded, and answered "Yeah Daddy I had fun."
I followed up with "Zoey, do you like the beach?" She answered "I like the beach."
Finally, I asked her, "Zoey, do you want to come back sometime?" She answered "I want to come back."
The reason she's such a good communicator (especially at such a young age) is she uses the words from your question to phrase her answer. She doesn't just answer "Did you like the beach?" with "Yeah". She answers and includes the original words "Yes I like the beach".
UPDATE:
Wow ... I was helping her get ready for bed and asked her: "Did you have fun at the beach?"
Her exact answer (mentally snapshot what she said since I wanted to record it word-for-word for posterity ...
"Yeah I had fun at the beach. I like the beach."
I'm so impressed. She speaks in full sentences, grammatically correct, and more often than not, even correct tense.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Neeky Nook
Zoey is very talkative and has quite the imagination. When we're reading together, she will look at the characters on the page and imagine a new conversation between them, and "speak" on behalf of the characters between each other.
She has always spoken very clearly. Her current favorite TV cartoon / books / character line is "Jake and the Never Land Pirates."
I'm actually glad she's moved (mostly) past Umizoomi as a favorite. Not that Umizoomi is a bad favorite, mind you, but the problem is since it never reached a tremendous amount of popularity, the toys from Fisher Price were quickly retired.
Supply and demand and all ... the Umizoomi Umicar originally sold for $15 - $20. When I looked at getting her one, it was on Amazon and eBay for $80. Just checked and the price is (gulp) now up to $160. That's pretty insane for a plastic toy that does not do much and originally retailed for $15.
Fortunately, "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" is very popular, so the toys are mass produced and easy/reasonable to buy. Zoey and her brother are into Duplos. He's actually probably big enough for Legos now, but we've always gone with youngest common denominator since Legos are a choking hazard, Michael never got any to play with while Zoey was still young.
We ordered Zoey and Michael a new set with Duplo minifigures. One Jake (for Michael) and one Izzy (for Zoey). Izzy is the girl pirate, and Zoey really likes watching her on the cartoon and reading about her adventures in our books.
In the series, Captain Hook is the mostly harmless, inept bumbling villain. The books often like to say "Captain Hook is a Sneaky Snook". Zoey picked up on this fast as a way to insult someone.
However, she does not yet pronounce the 'S' in words that start with the letter 'S'. So she's been going around telling all of us "You are a Neeky Nook! You are a Neeky Nook!" It's really adorable. She also says she wants to see "no" (snow) and a "noman" (snowman).
I'm really working hard to get her to pronounce 'S', for some reason she struggles with it.
She has always spoken very clearly. Her current favorite TV cartoon / books / character line is "Jake and the Never Land Pirates."
I'm actually glad she's moved (mostly) past Umizoomi as a favorite. Not that Umizoomi is a bad favorite, mind you, but the problem is since it never reached a tremendous amount of popularity, the toys from Fisher Price were quickly retired.
Supply and demand and all ... the Umizoomi Umicar originally sold for $15 - $20. When I looked at getting her one, it was on Amazon and eBay for $80. Just checked and the price is (gulp) now up to $160. That's pretty insane for a plastic toy that does not do much and originally retailed for $15.
Fortunately, "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" is very popular, so the toys are mass produced and easy/reasonable to buy. Zoey and her brother are into Duplos. He's actually probably big enough for Legos now, but we've always gone with youngest common denominator since Legos are a choking hazard, Michael never got any to play with while Zoey was still young.
We ordered Zoey and Michael a new set with Duplo minifigures. One Jake (for Michael) and one Izzy (for Zoey). Izzy is the girl pirate, and Zoey really likes watching her on the cartoon and reading about her adventures in our books.
In the series, Captain Hook is the mostly harmless, inept bumbling villain. The books often like to say "Captain Hook is a Sneaky Snook". Zoey picked up on this fast as a way to insult someone.
However, she does not yet pronounce the 'S' in words that start with the letter 'S'. So she's been going around telling all of us "You are a Neeky Nook! You are a Neeky Nook!" It's really adorable. She also says she wants to see "no" (snow) and a "noman" (snowman).
I'm really working hard to get her to pronounce 'S', for some reason she struggles with it.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Dinosaur ... Roar
Zoey likes dinosaurs. She really likes dinosaurs. She has a stuffed dinosaur, and just got a plastic (realistic, almost scary) looking dinosaur from Chuck E. Cheese today for 400 tickets. She carries her dinosaur all over the house and goes around saying, "Dinosaur, ROAR!"
I liked dinosaurs growing up as well.
I liked dinosaurs growing up as well.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Chuck E Cheese and the Glowing Jellyfish
Zoey's favorite place to go is Chuck E. Cheese. She gets really excited at the notion of going to Chuck E. Cheese.
Zoey will often say "I likea Chuck-e-cheese, I go Chuck-e-cheese!"
She got to go on Sunday since I took Michael to a baseball game. I thought about taking Zoey as well, but it would have been a lot of work since Mommy's not into baseball.
It was actually a good thing I didn't take her ... Michael and I ended up walking at least a mile to / from the stadium.
Surprisingly we ended up going to Chuck E Cheese again just 2 days later. It was a cloudy day, didn't want to do anything outdoors, and I had a free gift card for service on our Honda, so I wanted to use it. Honda dealership is right across the street from Chuck E Cheese, so I figured we could stop by.
It was a complete summer downpour by the time we pulled into the Chuck E Cheese parking lot. Luckily we got the parking space right by the door. For some reason, it was even closer to the door than the disabled parking spaces, best spot in the house (guess the disabled spots were where the sidewalk ramp starts, which is further from the door than our lovely spot).
Mommy and I crawled to the backseat to get the kids, and we made the dash into the door, all of 10 feet and we were all drenched by the time we got in.
It was a good thing we went, though. Zoey had an awesome time. We played several games before the kids settled in on Harpoon Lagoon as their favorite game.
This game was something else. One token gives you 5 shots to "harpoon fish". 80 lbs. gets you one ticket. If you snag the shark (he's flanked by tons of "guard fish"), you get 5 tickets.
Basically, if you get 5 tickets on a play, you've really done awesome. Average is 1 or 2 tickets.
Well, I learned something new about that game today. In the middle is a treasure box that opens on occasion. When it is open, there's a special glowing jellyfish that goes in a circle that's really hard to snag. He actually gives a bonus of 50 tickets, which is like a jackpot in the world of kids and Chuck E Cheese tickets.
The game really draws you in. You hear the rumbling, then the glowing jellyfish opens, and the music and lights and sound makes it seem like something really special, like a big rare bonus.
The glowing jellyfish opened up. I was trying to snag it. Michael and Mommy were as well. Couldn't get it.
Then Zoey hits the button and snags the jellyfish and the whole game goes crazy, with lights, sounds, and tickets dispensing. It honestly reminded me of those video slot machines when someone hits a big jackpot.
She actually ended up snagging the glowing jellyfish another 2 times ... 3 times in total.
Toward the end, Michael was saying to Zoey "Zoey you're a winner" and that made her excited and she danced around and said "yeah I win!"
He was actually reaching into his own token cup and putting them into her coin slot for her so she could play (I'm guessing he figured they have a collective ticket pool and it would be his best chance of getting lots of tickets).
They had a wonderful time.
After we were done playing, the rain stopped, and we went to Honda and I got free new wiper inserts for the minivan, which was nice. So Daddy and kids were happy.
She got to go on Sunday since I took Michael to a baseball game. I thought about taking Zoey as well, but it would have been a lot of work since Mommy's not into baseball.
It was actually a good thing I didn't take her ... Michael and I ended up walking at least a mile to / from the stadium.
Surprisingly we ended up going to Chuck E Cheese again just 2 days later. It was a cloudy day, didn't want to do anything outdoors, and I had a free gift card for service on our Honda, so I wanted to use it. Honda dealership is right across the street from Chuck E Cheese, so I figured we could stop by.
It was a complete summer downpour by the time we pulled into the Chuck E Cheese parking lot. Luckily we got the parking space right by the door. For some reason, it was even closer to the door than the disabled parking spaces, best spot in the house (guess the disabled spots were where the sidewalk ramp starts, which is further from the door than our lovely spot).
Mommy and I crawled to the backseat to get the kids, and we made the dash into the door, all of 10 feet and we were all drenched by the time we got in.
It was a good thing we went, though. Zoey had an awesome time. We played several games before the kids settled in on Harpoon Lagoon as their favorite game.
This game was something else. One token gives you 5 shots to "harpoon fish". 80 lbs. gets you one ticket. If you snag the shark (he's flanked by tons of "guard fish"), you get 5 tickets.
Basically, if you get 5 tickets on a play, you've really done awesome. Average is 1 or 2 tickets.
Well, I learned something new about that game today. In the middle is a treasure box that opens on occasion. When it is open, there's a special glowing jellyfish that goes in a circle that's really hard to snag. He actually gives a bonus of 50 tickets, which is like a jackpot in the world of kids and Chuck E Cheese tickets.
The game really draws you in. You hear the rumbling, then the glowing jellyfish opens, and the music and lights and sound makes it seem like something really special, like a big rare bonus.
The glowing jellyfish opened up. I was trying to snag it. Michael and Mommy were as well. Couldn't get it.
Then Zoey hits the button and snags the jellyfish and the whole game goes crazy, with lights, sounds, and tickets dispensing. It honestly reminded me of those video slot machines when someone hits a big jackpot.
She actually ended up snagging the glowing jellyfish another 2 times ... 3 times in total.
Toward the end, Michael was saying to Zoey "Zoey you're a winner" and that made her excited and she danced around and said "yeah I win!"
He was actually reaching into his own token cup and putting them into her coin slot for her so she could play (I'm guessing he figured they have a collective ticket pool and it would be his best chance of getting lots of tickets).
They had a wonderful time.
After we were done playing, the rain stopped, and we went to Honda and I got free new wiper inserts for the minivan, which was nice. So Daddy and kids were happy.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Hello, I'm Princess
Zoey has started introducing herself with the following line:
"Hello, I'm Princess".
She'll stand up on a table, look you in the face, and say it several times in a row.
Since she's still very young, she pronounces it,
"Helno, I'm Pinces."
But we understand what she means.
"Hello, I'm Princess".
She'll stand up on a table, look you in the face, and say it several times in a row.
Since she's still very young, she pronounces it,
"Helno, I'm Pinces."
But we understand what she means.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)