Delaney's favorite things

A few of my friends have sent me emails recently saying how they read my blog regularly and how they love feeling like they still hear from me on a regular basis even if we don't talk. Which is great and I definitely write entries here with the sole purpose of keeping friends and family updated on our life. But the REAL reason I started this blog was to force myself to write things down and journal my children's lives more. Plus I enjoy writing so I figured it might be good for the soul as well.

I found myself going back to last years posts to see what I wrote and was pleasantly reminded of things that I had already forgotten about. So this blog is succeeding in that way, which is a nice relief.

In that spirit, I am going to write about Delaney's favorite things right now because those seems to change on a weekly basis.

1. Lightweight clothing. For the last 6 months or so Delaney has strongly resisted wearing anything that resembles warm clothing.... long pants, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts and jackets. We have managed to get her dressed for fall and winter, only after serious hard work, but when she comes home from school the first thing she does is beeline to her room so she can change into a short sleeve shirt and a skirt. We had to remove the shorts from her room so they weren't even an option. Two days ago she changed into a short sleeve shirt, the underpanties that come under a skirt and her Keens. I wish I had a picture of it because it was really quite a sight.

2. Changing clothes. Delaney also likes to change her clothes about 3 times a day. School days she only changes once but the average for days where we are home is 3. Our rule is that she can change the clothes but she can't ask us for help in doing so because we don't support that many clothing changes. A nice side effect to this policy is that she has learned to get dressed by herself very well. I have also stopped washing a lot of her clothes that she wears for only a part of the day. Who cares if there is a little stain on a sleeve?

3. Jeeky Deeky. I am actually going to do a separate post about this little stuffed lamb because it deserves it's own post, but I need to list him here because there are not too many moments of her current days that she has spent without this little fella. And it's the first stuffed toy that she has actually NAMED. Jeeky has been a constant friend and companion for Delaney for at least a month.

4. Balls and activities around balls. Delaney has taken to playing catch inside with any one of her many balls, and also asks to bring balls when we go to the park. She is getting very good at catching and also kicking balls. We play a game where we see how many times we can throw back and forth to each other without one of us dropping it.

5. Games. I went on game purchasing bender a while back and bought a slough of new learning games for the bug. We are now the proud owners of Old Maid, Go Fish, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, the Memory Game, Coocoo the Rocking Clown and Zimbbos to name a few. Her favorite is the Memory Game and she is VERY good at this game, arguably better than Kevin or I.

6. Playing pretend. I think it's wonderful that Delaney's imagination has started to grow and you can see it best when she puts on her pretend hat. Delaney has a pretend sister and now a pretend husband. She eats pretend food and has pretend conversations. She likes to make up stories and at night likes to have her ears filled with made up stories by Kevin and I. She has not been very good at playing by herself but recently I have noticed that she plays by herself best when she is doing some kind of pretend activity like baking, cooking, eating, etc.

7. Park/pool/bouncy house. She loves going to any one of these places and regularly asks to do so.

8. Her buddy Jasper. Jasper has been in great favor at school for some time and she has been thoroughly enjoying a close friendship with him. She also likes and talks a lot about Maddy, Boden, Spencer, Finley and Jeanie Bean. But no one quite compares to Jasper.

9. Chasing/hiding/being scared. She absolutely relishes in someone chasing her around an item (island in the kitchen, table, etc) and loves it best when you reverse your direction and scare her by coming right at her. She "sort of" gets hide and seek, although it's pretty darn cute when she hides and when you say aloud "hmmm, I wonder where Delaney is?" and you hear her say "mommy I'm hiding over here!".

10. Running. Delaney loves to run. She likes to race other people and does this hilarious little starting pose where she says "ready, set go!" and then takes off. She does it in grocery stores, on errands, in the house, at the park or wherever the mood strikes.

11. Mina. Her "mina" blanket (aka her lovey) has been a constant companion since she was 6 months old. She has slept with it every night for the last two years. When she gets upset she frantically looks for mina's comforting arms and promptly sticks her thumb in her mouth. We have 3 mina blankets and she doesn't seem to mind that we switch them out on her (she knows the differences between them). I think mina will be in her life for a very, very long time.

12. Sesame Street. Given that I knew Delaney would be spending more time at home after Garrett was born I bought a whole bunch of movies to try and spice up the variety of what she watches on TV. I bought Happy Feet, Nemo, Sleeping Beauty, Kung Fu Panda, 101 Dalmations and a few others. But they only succeed in capturing her attention for about 10 minutes. Sesame Street is still her favorite, and Elmo's World is her favorite within the show. She will actually sit through a full one-hour episode of the Street. I will admit that I let her watch a whole episode on the days where we are all at home. It helps start our day off happy and I watched it as a kid so it can't be too bad, right??!

13. Rough-housing with dad. We have an adventure seeker on our hands who likes to be spun, flipped and thrown by her dad. As soon as you do something like that to her she immediately asks "do it again!".

Those are the big ones. It felt good to write them down because I realize there are a lot of fun things about Delaney right now in her life. Writing down what makes her happy is a nice way to remind myself of how great my little daughter is, even though I am challenged and tested by her every day.

Bug, here's to you, and your unmatched zest for life.