Friday, September 21, 2012

Harper and Reid's latest

Harper is such an incredible eater. I am by no means a perfect parent but I am very proud of how my girls eat and the fact that neither one has ever had a dose of antibiotics -or any other prescription medication- and we are still holding steady with one sick visit to the doctor, for Harper when she was about 19 months. The credit goes to Chinese medicine, homeopathy and lots of healthy food. Harper recently declared, "I love kale. I want to eat kale every day!" Music to my ears. Before bed tonight I asked her if she wanted a snack and she said she wanted crackers and raw pieces of kale. Love it!

They definitely don't eat kale at every meal though, there are occasional moments of typical "kid" foods like mac & cheese and pizza. We don't take them out to eat very often because Reid refuses to sit in a high chair. But today Daddy came home from work for lunch and took them to Noodles & Company while I was at our local Whole Foods, training the staff in the Whole Body department on Chinese herbs. Harper said to Andy, "This restaurant is called Noodles, but we eat mac & cheese. Wyatt has a restaurant called Mac & Cheese but it serves noodles."  Wyatt is her imaginary friend. His role in our life goes in and out but he is referenced pretty frequently. He has been with us for about a year. At first she told people that he was her brother but she doesn't say that as often these days, he's evolved into just a friend. She's recently developed an interest in the solar system, and coincidentally, Wyatt moved to Saturn. She also told Andy that Wyatt's daddy has more hair than he does and that Wyatt now has a baby brother, named Ocho, who chokes a lot. Her imagination is so wild, she cracks us up every day.

I have really enjoyed age 3 with Harper, she is a mix of mature and child-like and so full of wonder. She loves her school, Spanish classes and ballet. Spanish and ballet are the only classes she's taking outside of school right now, it seems like enough and I don't want to over-schedule her. This is the first season they've ever missed having a music class, I had no idea how quickly classes fill up in the Chicago suburbs, I will be sure to register right away for next season. Fortunately she'll have plenty of other opportunities for music exposure, including a few dates at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra children's performances, which I'm already excited for. She and Reid have been taking Spanish for over 6 months now and it has been incredible to watch them learn. Harper is in a class by herself and Reid is in the mom and me class. Reid is the youngest one in her class but definitely one of the biggest talkers! The class is entirely in Spanish, they play games, play with toys, have a snack, make a craft. It has been one of the best things we've done. They also have a Spanish-speaking nanny one day a week so that reinforces the language and Harper also gets it at school. Andy and I need to learn or soon we are going to be left out of their conversations. It's a pleasure to watch them grow.

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