Summer Schedule

Summer is here.  Well, summer vacation...the weather, not so much.

Haley has adapted to her summer schedule swimmingly.  It took her several days, but she is now "sleeping in" which for her is 6:00 am rather that 5:00 am.  In fact she did wake up at 5:00 am this morning, but she wanted to be covered back up again.

She then proceeds to get herself dressed.  She has come up with some really cute outfits so far.  She doesn't change her pull-up, which would be nice, but getting dressed is a good first step.

She doesn't seem very hungry in the morning.  I have to practically force her to eat breakfast, but she is ready for "lunch" by 10:30 am.  I actually think she ate lunch early at school.

She has been keeping herself busy.  She is on her laptop.  She watches movies.  She has been playing with her horses and her dolls.  She even got her Polly Pockets out the other day, she hasn't played with them in a long time.  The thing that keeps her most occupied is her Magic Notebook.  She wants me to write in it all the time.  She traces the words I write.

Every page is full of the same words:

Grandpa  Grandma  Haley  camping  tent  fire  chairs  sleeping bag  tree farm  trees

I started writing sentences for her.

I want to walk in the trees.   Sit with me, Grandpa.  Hi, how are you?  I am good.  I love you.

She has been planning this trip to the tree farm for a long time, but she still has a long time to wait.  And something fun is happening before then.  We are going to Disneyland.  I was reluctant to tell her, like I always am, but if she can plan this long to go camping at the tree farm maybe she can handle knowing about this trip.

So today I asked her if I could write some words in her book.  She said "Yeah." and handed it to me.  I wrote the names of everyone that is going on our trip and then I wrote Disneyland.  I read it to her.  She repeated it.  No big deal.

A little while later her Dad walked in the room and she showed him the notebook.  He seemed surprised when he read the words.  He asked her about it.  Then she got excited.  He told her that she might see some of her favorite characters at Disneyland.

He started naming some of them.

She said "Aladdin?"

We said "Yes."  I told her she might see some princesses.  She said "Belle?"

We said "Yes."   

"Beast?"  "Yes."

Dad said "Lightning McQueen." 

She said "Mater."

We said "Yes."

She said "Tarzan?" 

We said "Yes."

I think she gets it.

She brought me the notebook a little while later and we added more characters.  So now there really is some Magic in that Magic Notebook.

Our Experiment

Haley had a great weekend.  Her grandparents came to visit.  They arrived on Friday shortly after Haley got home from school.  She was so happy to see them, but she was really shy.  They got hugs, but not the hugs with big squeezes that we had been practicing.  

They went to Yoga with her. 

They said that it seemed like she was being very shy.  Her Dad said that she did everything at about 110%.  I got an email from her Yoga instructor this weekend saying that although she wouldn't look at them, she was worked a lot harder than she usually does.  She said that Haley was sweating.

Haley spent the weekend around her grandparents.  

In the past she has done her own thing.  Not this time.  She sat on the couch next to them while we watched a baseball game on the TV.  We went on several walks, she kept up with us.  I didn't have to drag her.  It was really nice.  She laid on the floor of the living room on Sunday evening while we were sitting around talking.  

She didn't use her laptop on the kitchen table like she usually does though.  For some reason she sat at my desk at one point and started using my laptop.  I don't know why she did it.  I guess she was too shy to ask someone to set up her laptop.  Both Grandma and Grandpa used their laptop on the kitchen table, where Haley is usually set up.

After they left she continued to use my laptop.

Haley came home on Monday with a snotty, runny nose so I didn't send her to school today.  I had a meeting to go to this morning.  When I got home she was still on my laptop.  I found her looking at my Facebook.  She was looking at my "friends" profiles and their pictures.  She likes to look at pictures of people that she knows.  She also likes to look at the things that her Dad likes.  Train things.

I broke down and created Haley a Facebook of her own.

She won't communicate like other people do on Facebook, but she will follow the things that she likes.  I asked a few people to friend her.  I asked them to put pictures, videos and audio messages on her wall.  I set it up so that it is pretty secure, I hope.

Then I asked her to come and look at it.

She sat down at the computer.  I showed her the timeline.  I clicked on the About section and asked her to tell me what she likes.  She said "Grinch."  I typed that in and found it, then I clicked "Like."  She said "4449" and "700."  I found those to.  We typed in a few movies that she likes.  Then I clicked on her wall.

Nothing.  It was blank.  I forgot how Facebook works I guess.  We needed to wait for the people that we friend requested to answer.  We needed to wait for the pages that we liked to put some content on.

I started searching for other things that she would like.  After I had found a dozen or so things I left her to it.  Pretty soon she came to me and asked for a movie or a train.  At this point I don't remember.  It has been a whirlwind ever since I started this.

She asked me for something that I had a hard time understanding, it basically sounded like "an"  I asked her to repeat it.  It didn't change much.  I had to really think.  Finally I realized that she meant "Tarzan."  I typed that in and hit "Like."  She said something else that sounded the same.  She started getting frustrated with me.  I finally got it.  "Aladdin!"  

A little while later she brought me the Mulan DVD.  She didn't want to watch it, she wanted me to type in the name of the movie.  It has been like that all afternoon.

I just sat down and showed her how to click on the Home button.  

She now has lots of things on her Wall.  I don't know what is going to come from this experiment, but so far she is having a wonderful time.