Locked in Peter's Car

While we were in Tennessee this Spring, my cousin Peter came to visit. He travels all around the country in his car and has stayed at our house before, so I asked him if he had room to take Mike's old bike (which we had accidentally left there when we moved to Wyoming) and bring it out the next time he comes to visit us. He said that would be fine, so he, Alayna, and I went out to load the bike into his trunk.

The bike didn't fit perfectly in his trunk, so he asked me to pull down the back seat to make a little extra room. Strangely, however, his car has a lock in the back window which you have to use the car keys to unlock in order to pull down the back seat. So, I did that and we fit the bike in no problem.

When we got that done, we were just standing by the car talking and Alayna crawled into the front seat of the car. Peter closed the door behind her and was letting her play around in the front. Well, you know kids, she reached up and started playing with the manual lock on the driver's door. I wasn't too concerned because I figure that would just lock the driver's door. Meanwhile, Peter starts saying (very slowly and nonchalantly) "That's probably not a good idea because..." LOCK. She pushed down the lock and ALL of the doors locked at once. And Peter finishes "...the keys are in there." He said it so casually that I really didn't believe him at first, I thought it was a joke or something. But then I saw them, in the back window where that stupid back seat lock was. And my baby was locked inside the car!



Well, we all stayed calm (Peter was REALLY calm, seriously I don't think he was worried at all) and thankfully Alayna was just playing and having fun playing in the front seat. We tried to get her to pull up on the manual lock, and she actually did, but she couldn't pull it hard enough. Then we tried to get her to push the automatic lock button because if she just touched that the doors would open right up. But she was having too much fun playing.



She found a pen and started marking on the steering wheel. I guess this finally made Peter somewhat concerned, because he exclaimed "Oh no, this is Christine's car! We've gotta get that kid outta there!" So he went and got a wire hanger and tried sticking it through the window to unlock the door.


Meanwhile, I kept talking to Alayna to keep her calm and to try and get her to push that lock button. After several minutes it became clear that Peter wasn't getting anywhere with the hanger so I asked my mom to call a locksmith. Then, just as my mom was about to call, Alayna thankfully reached toward the front of the car and touched the lock button.



All the doors unlocked! She had saved herself, and boy was I relieved! I think Peter was just thankful she didn't mark up the car too much and we didn't end up having to break any windows. :)

**All pictures above are reenactments taken immediately after the actual event.

I'm Back!

I can't believe it has almost been 5 months since I last updated my blog. I apologize to those few of you who actually read this and have been waiting. We have been very busy with traveling to Tennessee, Colorado, Idaho, and Washington. We have also been doing a lot of re-landscaping in the yard and I've been working on several quilts and am working on starting up a small at-home business doing hand quilting for people.

Alayna is growing so fast. She is almost 22 months old now. Her list of words now would be so long I don't think I could fit it all on this blog. She's learning so much so fast, it's staggering. Now she is putting several words together and even saying some sentences. For example, the other evening we were out in the yard and the sprinklers turned on, which is our cue to go inside because it's time to get ready for bed. When Alayna and I got inside, Mike ran back out to grab something and Alayna yelled "Daddy the sprinklers are on!" I couldn't believe it. Now, her pronunciation needs some work, but I was so impressed with her sentence. She also know several letters, including A,B,C,F,I,O,P,S,X,Y...and maybe a few more, and is learning colors.

Alayna is also getting REALLY tall. We went to visit her cousins in Washington and I was surprised to see that she was almost exactly the same height as her cousin Alyssa, who is over 13 months older than her! People we talk to around town assume she is 2 and a half to 3 years old already. I think I'm going to have to put her into basketball when she gets older... So far, her most favorite toys are balls, so I think she may be into sports. By the way, the last time I posted I told you about Alayna's fear of water. After several months of screaming every time she had to take a bath, she suddenly just got over it and she LOVES taking baths and swimming now. I guess it was just one of those crazy phases. :)



We went to Tennessee for Easter and for my cousin Jessica's wedding. Alayna was the flower girl at the wedding. She did a great job walking down the aisle with the junior flower girls and looked so adorable in her flower girl dress! And wasn't Jessica just beautiful?


As always, we had a really nice time visiting with Grandma (MaMa) and Grandpa (Papa) and Great Grandma Simpson as well as other friends and family.

More Words

It seems like Alayna is learning new words almost every day, so here are some new ones to add to her list:

Bo (Bowl)

Di Daw Di Daw – waving arm back & forth like clock arm (Tick Tock for Clock)

Vvvv (Vacuum)

Eee Eee (Mouse or Bird)

Weeooo Weeooo (Fire truck siren)

Whoo Whoo (Owl)

Stertle (Circle)

Socks

Dee Daw (Ding Dong – Bell)

Stop

Do/Go (Go)

Boble (Bottle)

Shs (Shoes)

Stow (Snow)

Bum bum bum bum (Shark – trying to do theme from Jaws)

Hi

Eyes

Look Who's Talking

Alayna is 16 months old now and is starting to talk quite a bit. It's so adorable, and is truly music to a speech pathologist's ears! I thought I should start to keep track of all of her words. So, here is what she is saying so far. BTW, her favorite words which she says ALL the time are "star", which she says beautifully, "woof" for dog, "uh oh" and "yeah," which she says enthusiastically in response to questions like "Do you want a banana?" or "Are you ready to go?" As you can see, she prefers sounds of things to their actual names, but those still count as words because she uses them consistently to communicate meaning.

Dat (That)

WaDat? (What's that?)

Dis (This)

WaDis? (What's this?)

SeeDat (I wanna see that)

Mama

Dada

Woof (Dog)

Star

Yeah

No

Uh oh

Woah/Wow

Yum

Yay! - & she usually claps when saying this

A (She identifies the letter, A for Alayna)

Sssss (Snake)

Some (I want some of that food)

Du Du Du (Duck or Quack)

Da (Ball or Balloon)

Baa baa (Sheep)

EeeAww (Donkey)

Vroom (Car)

Ch Ch (Train)

Zzzz (Bee/bug or Zipper)

Budu budu budu (Horse galloping)

Vvvv - & puts arm up for the elephant's trunk(Elephant)

Mmmm (Cow)

Mmmeee – high pitched (Cat)

Ho ho ho (Santa)

H h h (Heart)

Atch (Watch)

Ees (Cheese & Peas)

A'ul (Apple)

Ox (Box)

Dow dow dow (Down down down - usually means "I want to go downstairs")

Ar Ar Ar (Seal)

Oo oo aa aa (Monkey)

(Sniffs for pig)

(Opens & closes mouth like a fish for fish)

Afraid of the water

All of a sudden, Alayna has become really afraid of water. She cries the whole time I try to give her baths. I tried getting her some fun new bath toys and even have tried getting in the bathtub and playing with her, but nothing seems to help. I thought if we took her to the swimming pool and showed her that water is fun she would like it, but she just screamed and shook and clung onto me in the pool. I have no idea what triggered this fear, but I read online that it's fairly common for toddlers her age. So, does anyone have any suggestions? Should I keep taking her to the pool hoping that she'll start to like it, or will forcing her to get in the water when she's petrified just make things worse? There are toddler swimming lessons starting in two weeks that I was thinking about signing her up for. Or should I wait on the swimming and just give her sponge baths until she grows out of the fear?