Audri in September 2009 ---------------->
I hadn't intended to wait this long to post an update, but time has definitely slipped away from me. Not long after Audri's one year homecoming celebration, Pa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary in Italy, while the kids were treated to a special visit from Grandma and Grandpa. One week later, my mom passed away very suddenly and quite unexpectedly. It was quite a shock to my system and the kids had their first experience in losing someone very close to them. Audri's still a little too young to understand death and the idea of never being able to see someone ever again; but for Mr. Na (and me, of course) losing "Nana" was heavy duty.
Since then, Audri's had a series of firsts making her one busy little person. She started preschool and attends four days a week for 2-1/2 hours a day. Additionally, she takes swimming lessons and gymnastics one day a week. And while this may seem like a chaotic schedule, it really isn't since it puts us home everyday around 1 p.m. so she has a chance to unwind before her brother comes home from school. The benefit from all of this is that her language skills have exploded in a little over a month. Now, she's asking, "Can I...?" when she wants to do something in addition to the thousands of words she uses. She can speak in five- to seven-word phrases and gets much less frustrated in communicating what she wants. Audri enjoys preschool, though at first, it was tough for her to watch me leave. After two rough days of tears and anxiety, though, she realized I always came back for her and that her teacher had a lot of cool toys and fun activities for her to do while I was gone. So...it wasn't so bad afterall!
The best part of preschool, for Audri, was celebrating her birthday last week. Not only did she get to wear a crown and blow out candles on her birthday cupcake, everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her and danced around with balloons. She felt very special and it was probably the first time I had ever seen her smile for an entire day!We kept our family birthday celebration to a minimum given that Halloween was coming up and the preschool was holding a costume party the next day. For preschool, Audri dressed as a ballerina; and for Halloween trick or treating, she dressed up as Princess Leia while Pa made a very cool R2D2 costume for Mr. Na. They both had a great time trick or treating at Pa's work and they received a loud round of applause when they were presented onstage during the costume pageant.
Audri's still not a big TV-viewer--but she loves anything musical and her favorite show is "Yo Gabba Gabba." You know, as weird as that show is, I can see that it's taught her an awful lot about friendship and perseverance. Plus, I'll admit, the songs are so catchy that Pa, Na and I often sing some of them to Audri throughout the day who in turn, smiles and chimes in. Besides, any shpw that features a song about balloons making someone happy is totally at the top of Audri's list of favorites!
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