The Seattle Story: Make it a turkey sandwich

So spoon-fed Zoe is all but a thing of the past. We're down to just yogurt and her morning fruit-tahini mash...that's about all she'll let us shovel in. Aside from that, Zo's on to new and exciting things like dad's homemade chicken sausage fingers and turkey sandwiches. OK, not sandwiches, per se, but the makings of, sure. A girl after my own heart :)

Not too much new this week. Life is busy and for the most part, routine. Spring seems near, which is good because I'm ready for more daylight. The crocuses are coming up!

And Zoe's sprouted another tooth - just about. Finally, the fourth of the mean top four has finally arrived. Just in time to make way for her bottom lateral incisors which seem to be moving closer to the surface. Good thing - she'll need 'em for all that chewing she's determined to do!

Yesterday, Dave, Zoe and I paid a visit to the Shoreline Children's Center for a tour of their preschool facilities. What a neat place. We were impressed with their curriculum approach (Reggio Emilia), as well as with the variety of teaching styles. It seems to offer a great mix of structure and freedom, creative play and guided exploration. And, it's super-flexible, allowing you to build your child's schedule according to your (working parent) needs. The community and Shoreline School District have invested lots of time and money into making it a desirable and approachable program and the fact that it's open to the public and extends assistance to families in need means that Zoe would be exposed to certain diversity among her peers. Sign me up.

Crashing after a hard day at school

Zoe had a great time pointing to all the exciting artwork hanging from the walls and ceilings, and watching the bigger kiddos doing their preschool thing. Hopefully this first exposure to school has implanted some good memories from which she can ground her education. Learning = happy times :)

Now, we know it's *very* early in the game to be considering preschools for Zoe, but being just up the road from Seattle and not being terribly familiar with the whole preschool landscape, we figured early is better than late. Especially since I've caught wind of wait lists for many choice programs in the area.

So, now we can keep our eyes open to other options but also rest and relax knowing there's a great, flexible and affordable program just down the road from our house. Phew. There have been two parenting topics that have managed to overwhelm me since becoming pregnant with Zoe: diapers (disposables - which ones are least terrible? vs. cloth - which ones cause the least headache and are environmentally sound-ish anyways?) and preschool. Needless to say, I'm much relieved about preschool.

In the very least, we've discovered a neat community resource - the school has lots of activities for families, lots of great park-like playgrounds free for public use, and lots of other young families around. Those kinds of connections are great to have.

Tuesday, Zoe reminded me about a few of her latest developments that I've neglected to tell you about. For starters, she said 'milk'. Well not MILK, but she said 'Mihl' when I asked her if she wanted milk. Awesome. She's done this now and again over the past few weeks but paired with her also very clearly demonstrating the eat sign, I'm impressed! She's mastering the whole idea of 'beverage' too, using a modification of the sign for water to acknowledge thirst.

She's also getting pretty good at asking for what she wants, like looking up to where her Johnny Jump-up is hanging and bouncing on her bum to suggest she'd like to bounce. Cuteness. And her manual dexterity is improving, as well. She's got a fierce fast pitch at the toy box, hurling one cup after another (one at a time, mind you) over her shoulder only to turn around and do it again. And she's been practicing more complex activities like placing things in and out and sharing toys with us. Oh, and the other day when I was working out on my mini-tramp in the utility room, she reached over the baby gate for me and we started the first of many high-fives. Now I can't do my thing without her standing there cheering me on.

And a final recent demonstration of Zoe's understanding more and more of the world around her came when we were looking at her animal picture book together. I make a habit of making the appropriate animal noise and naming the animal on each page; when I said 'meow' and 'kitty' and then pointed to Buddha sleeping on her cushion on the couch and the kitty picture above it, Zoe immediately went marching over full of giggles, stood up and burst into chatter at poor, startled Buddha.

Checkin' out Zebra dude