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I have some pictures I took on my camera of the Aquarium trip that I will try to upload soon. Also Mike took some pictures of Abby’s birthday party last Saturday, and I took some on our trip to Disneyland last Wed. I’ve been keeping busy with school work, but so far so good. We are into the 6th week of our 8 week class, and so far I have 100% still! I know it won’t last, but I’m feeling pretty good about it so far. Our final project is worth 35% of our grade, so I don’t expect to get 100% on that one.
I’ve also decided to cut some hours at Gymboree. It’s just getting too stressful. So I’m keeping my same schedule through October, and then dropping Saturdays once November comes. I’ll still be teaching Baby Signs there through Nov 22. I am also trying to get my own private business going for Baby Signs. I’m hoping to teach a session of it before I head to Kentucky for my extended Christmas break. Then when I come back I’ll get into full-swing. Well, it’s time to get ready to take Jordan to Gymboree!

I have finally gotten caught up with the pictures! There are a bunch of new ones in April and May.
Here are some highlights:
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My mom’s Mother’s Day present with a mini-version I made for Jordan, and Jordan modeling her backpack
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Mother’s Day:
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Playing with Daddy
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A couple days ago I bought Jordan a baby doll stroller, and she wanted to go for a walk with it yesterday. Here’s what that looked like:
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And a quick update on what’s going on here:
Jordan news- she can count to 12, and recognizes all her letters. She’s speaking in sentences, though not completely clearly. She’s doing really well with potty training. I’m thinking about taking a week off work to try to kick-start her training. She’s actually “trying” every time she sits on the potty, so we are making headway! She’s stayed dry for longer chunks of each day lately, too. And she’s still waking up dry many mornings, then using the potty when she wakes up. She’s very in to pretend play- mainly with her babies, or washing dishes, or cleaning. I guess that’s a good sign!
Mike news- he’s still busy with school, and work, but the end of at least this degree is slowly approaching.
Maren news- I just finished co-teaching the Baby Signs: Sign, Say and Play program at Gymboree, and I’ve been accredited to teach this summer! I’ll be teaching the 6 week series July through mid August. And, in the absolute latest news… I am now the proud owner of a MacBook!! Mike got me one for an early b-day present. Our current laptop was a hand-me-down that was getting a bit on the old side, and kept crashing on us. Plus I’ve been looking for something to help me get Jordan’s videos on the computer so I can make DVDs. So now I have to learn all about the Mac, but I’m excited! We’ll see how it goes!

I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I would take some time while Jordan’s napping to give the update. She’s been sleeping really well now for a while. She takes a 2-3 hour nap every day, and has been sleeping roughly from 8pm-7am without waking up at all. Then she’s content to cuddle/play with us in bed for another hour or so before she wants to get up and eat breakfast. It’s been really nice to be able to get sleep all night again. I still wake up, but at least I don’t have to go into her room. And she’s been great about falling asleep on her own in her crib, too. I lay her down on her pillow, and cover her with a blanket, kiss her on the head, and she falls asleep on her own. I sometimes hear her playing, but lately she’s been silent when I leave the room. Also a few nights ago she said “I love you” for the first time. It was more like “love oo” but I knew what she was saying. It’s really cute. She’s also been using the word “too” a lot. She’ll sit down on the balance beam at Gymboree then point to the spot next to her and say “mama, too?” meaning she wants me to sit down with her. She’s getting pretty good at 2-3 word sentences. We’ve also started learning ASL (American Sign Language). We started with Baby Signs a while back, but I’ve always wanted to learn ASL, so I figured why not. I got a recommendation for a video series from a friend who’s an interpreter. It arrived yesterday, and I’ve so far only gone through the first lesson. It’s pretty intense but I’m starting to understand ASL fairly quickly. The hard part will be actually learning the grammar since it’s different than English. I also bought a dvd series for children on ASL for us to watch together. I bought 2 at first, and ever since they arrived Jordan hasn’t wanted to watch hardly anything else on TV. She requests “Signing Time” almost all the time! Thankfully the rest of the series will be arriving soon, so we can stop watching the same 2 dvds over and over again. Jordan now goes around asking for “Alex and Leah” since those are the kids that “star” in the program. We video taped her the other night dancing to the theme song. And she will sit there, and sign (or at least attempt to sign) the words they’re teaching. It’s helping expand her spoken vocabulary as well. She didn’t know the word “wait” until we started watching. She’s also quickly learning opposites. Up and down, stop and go, etc. She strings them together most of the time. I’ve been working on color and shape recognition with her as well, but so far we don’t really know what the shapes are, or the colors. Today she labeled an orange scooter as “purple”, and then everything was purple. I know she’ll get it eventually.
I have a bunch of pictures to upload, so hopefully I’ll get to do that soon. Oh- and I might be co-teaching a Baby Signs class at Gymboree next month! I hope it works out. I just have to find someone to watch Jordan for an hour and a half or so. It shouldn’t be that difficult since the class is scheduled for her normal nap time. She wouldn’t even know I was gone!
Well, I hear her waking up-and she’s actually trying to sing the theme song for Signing Time! “Alex…Leeeeeaaaaaah”

Jordan continues to amaze me with how many signs and words she learns on a day to day basis! Here are some of the latest signs: Please (and she uses it correctly now!, Thank you, Up, Pumpkin, Open, Gentle, and Chicken. chicken isn’t really the real sign (I don’t know what it is), but she moves her arms like in the chicken dance while saying “bock bock”, or more like “bah bah”. Her new words are: Book, That, Down, Bye Bye, and Apple. It’s getting rather hard to keep up with all these new things!

This post will be a quick one. I just wanted to record Jordan’s new words and signs:
Words: Ball, Doll, Bra (Don’t ask), Jordan (Joh-doh), Moe (from the Doodlebops, and she doesn’t even watch it very often), Jo-Jo (more like “Doh-Doh”, again from Playhouse Disney “Feelin’ Good with Jo-Jo”) Boo (and she recognizes it in books spelled out.)

Sounds: “BAA” for a sheep

Signs: Mouse, Car(her own sign), Please (but she doesn’t know how to use it yet)

I haven’t posted in a very long time, and I’m exhausted now, so we shall see how coherent this post is! I’m going to try and condense it as much as possible, so here goes!
Jordan News:
Jordan is now proficient at walking!! She started walking fairly well on her own when I posted those baby in the grass pictures, and she’s gotten better as the days go by. She is also learning so many new things. She knows the signs for so many things now- she can finally do the sign for “duck”, and “bird”, and has begun to attempt the hand motions to the itsy bitsy spider. She also can point to noses (Mommy’s, Jordan’s, Daddy’s, kitty’s, etc), eyes, ears, and mouths. She has learned how to blow kisses, knows where her tummy is (and Mommy’s), and is getting better at kissing when we ask for a kiss. She still comes at us with an open mouth to plant one right on our mouths, but oh well. And when she blows a kiss, it’s usually licking her hand first. Her night time routine has also been turned upside down. She is waking up several times at night, needing snuggles, hugs, rocking, milk, or any combination thereof. This is probably due to the next bit of news…
Mommy has a new job!
I have started working part-time at Gymboree as a teacher! I have 2 classes Tuesday and Wednesday nights, then I work all day Saturday. The training is close to being over, so I’m closer to being a full-fledged teacher! Our new schedule starts next week, and that’s when “my” classes start. I’ll be teaching Levels 2-6, so that should certainly be interesting. I’ve done a level 3 and level 2 all by myself, and parts of level 4, 5, and 6. I seem to be having the most trouble with Levels 5 and 6, as they can talk, and it throws me off a bit. I’m used to kids up to age 2, but have had more experience with the babies up to maybe 18 months. I have to learn how to pretend again, and how to understand 2-3 year old speak. But it is a very fun job. Playing with kids all day, and getting paid for it! The best part is that now Jordan can attend classes for free! The worst part is being away from Jordan. She gets to stay with Daddy while I’m gone, so at least it’s a familiar situation, but I miss her when I’m gone. She misses me, too, I think, judging from the way she clings to me when I return, and the way she clings to me at night when she wakes up screaming like a banshee. I’m hoping that now that the schedule will be the same every week that she will get more used to it, and go back to sleeping longer stretches.
Speaking of sleeping- that’s what I want to be doing now, so off I go! I need to get some sleep in before the marathon waking/cuddling/eating/crying starts, and hopefully get enough sleep so that I won’t be a zombie going to church in the morning!

Jordan got her first Birthday card yesterday from Geen (my grandmother). I took some pics of her looking at it.

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There were cat stickers on the outside of the envelope, and Jordan started signing cat! So now she can sign quite a few things, though many of the signs are her own special sign.
Normal signs:
Light
Frog
Eat
Milk
Hat
More
All Done
Bunny

“Jordan” Signs:
Drink- uses her first finger to her lips and tips her head back
Cat- wipes her face from side to side
Dog- does the sign for Frog
Bubble- opens and closes her fists alternately with her arms in the air, usually looking up in the air
Monkey- puts her mouth in an “oo” shape

She’s also been pointing to her head when she bumps it, or any other body part almost as if to say “kiss it here”. It’s very cute. Well, Jordan’s napping, so I’d better go get more stuff done for this party coming up!

Jordan now has quite a repertoire of signs! She has been signing “milk”, “light”, and “frog” for quite a while, but recently she has added “bunny”, “all done”, “eat”, and she can kind of do “duck” and “bubbles”. She understands the sign and word for bath, and gives a HUGE smile when she sees/hears it. She uses the sign for bunny around Boo all the time. She’s also pointing at everything to try to get her needs met. She can’t tell me with words what she wants to eat, but she will point to it. Thankfully the pointing is not accompanied by whining… yet. She has also stood alone for a few seconds at a time, and sort of taken a couple of steps while falling towards the ground. She’ll try to balance, then get somewhere else, and she can take maybe 2-3 steps before landing on the floor. I think she’ll be walking before her first birthday, though I’m not really encouraging her walking. We play chasing games while crawling, and I will get on the floor and crawl around with her at least a couple times a day. She doesn’t tend to try to walk much while at Gymboree, even though most of the other babies there are walking, and some are even running. One of the moms told me that within 4 weeks of switching to level 3, her son started walking. This is the beginning of the 4th week, and so far so good. I want her to get to 11 months at least before she’s walking, but I guess I can’t stop her if she’s ready! Oh, and another random tidbit- she imitated a monkey last night. It was hysterical, because she got her mouth in the smallest little circle I’ve ever seen while opening her mouth inside as big as it would go and saying “oo oo oo”. I’ll have to try and get a picture of it, if not video. Oh, and she was playing with monkeys at the time. I haven’t taken pictures in a little while, so sorry I don’t have anything else to share.

Jordan has spoken a new word today: “Tigger!” She said it while I was in the shower and she was playing with bath toys on the floor. I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, so I asked what she said, and she looked at me and said very clearly “Tigger”. So after getting dressed, I took her into her bedroom to see the Tiggers in her bed to see what she would do. As we approached the crib, she pointed in the direction of the 3 Tiggers (yes, she has 3 Tiggers in her bed- she has more in her room, too! ) and said “Tigger”. I took her shopping today and we brought along her mini Tigger, and she said Tigger throughout the day. So cute! She also can say “Duck”, but she says it all the time, and not really in connection with ducks. Oh yeah- and she learned how to sign frog today as well. So her signs are: Light, Milk, Frog, Bye bye (waving), and clapping. And her words are: Mama, Dada, Cat, Dog, All Done, Tickle, Tigger, and Duck. The past couple of days I’ve tried to get better at doing the signs with her, so hopefully that will help with her learning more new signs.
On our shopping trip I bought her her first pair of shoes for walking. She had a pair of sandals that my parents gave her, but they were more for “cuteness”, and she has now outgrown them. I had a coupon for Stride Rite so we headed over there to be measured, and to see the new line of shoes. Turns out she’s a size 3 to 3 1/2, so they suggested a size 4, and it has to be a wide, since her foot is so fat. So I got her a pair of white sandals. They didn’t have any other colors, but they do have butterflies on them, and they should last her through her first birthday at the least. Her feet have grown slowly so far, and they are basically 6-9 month size in length, they’re just fat!
In other news, my ankle is slowly healing- I’m off the crutches, but still wearing the gel cast during the day, though I’ve been taking it off at night while I’m home to move it around so it doesn’t get stiff. I’m still going to lay off working out until next week probably. My parents came down for my birthday weekend, and that was a blast. Jordan greatly enjoyed having her grandparents around, and Mike and I did too!! I’ll upload the pics soon. It’s been tough because I’ve been busy getting presents ready that I can’t talk about. My parent’s anniversary is June 1, Mike’s birthday is June 4, and Father’s Day is coming up too!! I got a lot of cool stuff for my birthday, including Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova for the PS2. I’ve been able to play it a little bit, but not too much, due to my ankle. Well, that’s about all that’s been going on here. I’ll try to get the pictures up from this past weekend soon!

I’m totally slacking on updating on the computer. I have tons of photos to upload to the gallery, and Jordan has been doing so much! She has learned to wave, she’s a pro at pulling herself up to stand, she can crawl forward at a semi-rapid pace, she’s now eating rice, barley, and oatmeal cereals, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, bananas, pear juice, and those little Gerber puffs. She’s had sweet potato ones, cherry ones, and banana ones. She really seems to like those, and I think she’d rather be eating finger foods instead of baby food. I’m using the stage 2 foods now, because the stage one foods are so liquid. I think she’d actually be okay with chunks now, even though she has no teeth. Anyway, she also can sign “light”, and might be signing milk as well. Another new thing that’s not so great is she has become extremely clingy. I can’t do hardly anything without her, and lately she’s wanted me to be inside her little gated area all the time. :S It doesn’t let me get anything done, and I’ve been having dinner around 8 because I can’t do anything away from her, and I won’t cook with her in my arms or in a carrier on me. She’s been going to bed anywhere from 6:30 to 8pm, but is now waking up at least twice a night, and the only thing that will calm her is feeding her. She’s acting like she’s starving even though she’s been known to eat a jar of carrots or sweet potatoes, and a bowl of cereal at dinner, and she hasn’t cut back on nursing even though she’s eating 2 solid food meals a day. So much for “babies sleep through the night after eating solids”. So that’s the happenings around here. Well, she’s crying again, even though she can see me, and I’m only 3 feet away! More later!