What Happened on Wednesday

The above picture is one of the girls at Whole Foods yesterday. It threatened to rain all day so I didn't plan any outside activities for us, and instead we ran errands. Hadley's eating a cookie and Harper has her beloved "Mum Mums" that she is crazy for. Harper has a little bow in her hair, but you can't see it too well in this picture. I tried to accentuate the "lift" she has going on in the middle of her head. Now instead of just going straight up, it goes up and off to the side. This adds to her "I look like I just put my finger in an electric socket" look.

Before we go out in the world, Harper has to take her morning nap. This is a challenging time for Hadley since she is ready to get going, and we still have some time in the house. I feel guilty putting her in front of the TV, so I've been trying to come up with stuff to do with her during this time.

On Tuesday while Hadley was in preschool, Harper and I went to the library to find some books for Hadley. It was nice to be able to actually read through some of the stories since usually when I go I just grab stuff off the shelves and hope for the best. It's hard to take a look at books while keeping an eye on your toddler running around.

I found a gem of a book called What Happens on Wednesdays by Emily Jenkins. It's a great story about a little girl who gets up while it's still dark, the mom drinks coffee and writes, and the dad drinks tea and takes his daughter to the bagel shop. On just about every page there is something we have in common with this family. I also got a book called Here Comes the Train in hopes that Hadley would see how much fun the characters in the book were having seeing the train roar by. She is terrified of trains because they are "too loud."

So I put these book in a bag along with some other activities, and then decorated the bag with a few pictures of Elmo, Dora, and Goofy. When Harper went down for her nap, I knocked on our door pretending someone was here. Hadley and I opened the door, and there was the bag from her favorite TV characters. They had written her notes asking her if she'd like to read the books, and do the activities they put in the bag.

Here's a picture of Hadley working on a letter and number page (I ripped it out of an activity book and put it in a bag with a letter from Goofy, etc. telling her they couldn't complete it because it was too hard):
Here's Hadley gluing pieces of paper that we ripped up together. We are making a collage to decorate on top of Cookie Monster:

Here's Hadley posing for the camera:

Here's a picture of the bag.

I think Hadley liked it. She loved the book What Happens on Wednesdays which made me really happy. We talked about it all day yesterday, and on the way to preschool this morning as well. And she loved the bag. She takes it with her all over the house, including the bathroom. I keep trying to put it out of her sight so I can fill it back up again with activities for the next day, but she continues to ask for it.

The last activity I planned was for Hadley to write Goofy, Elmo, and Dora a letter. I told her that I would write what she says, and this is what happened:

"Dear Elmo, Goofy, and Dora,

D. (No it's not a typo. That's the first thing she said.)

I like to jump. I also like to take pictures of cameras. I want to watch Mikey Mouse. So let's go watch Mickey Mouse.

Love, Hadley."

So I guess it didn't make her forget about TV afterall, but at least we got some reading and coloring time in too.