Today we're celebrating Adelaide's 2½ birthday

Happy ½-birthday, Adelaide! :)

We were celebrating also last year, because it feels like a big milestone. And this year it seemed like an especially good idea, because Adelaide has noticed very well, that we are celebrating Jasmiina's little birthdays each month, and very soon Jasmiina's big birthday is coming up. So why not have a party for Adelaide as well? 

It's just us, no guests (we were planning to go to Latvia, but we are going through some sick-wave, down one after another, so had to cancel that. Also no family photo this time, because I was so sick yesterday myself, not a picture material right now :D ), but we did have balloons.. And cake. And photo-session. 

Actually we even had a gift for her! But because we thought, that we're going to Latvia, we gave it already a week early. She got her first real Montessori material - knobbed cylinders (cylinder blocks). So symbolic, Adelaide is 2,5 years old, and the real Montessori materials are meant for 3-6 year olds, but 2,5 as the earliest possible.

I don't know, how it looks from aside? :D A boring gift? Some plain wooden things.. But she loves them! ;)
And we love them too. They feel so perfectly nice. Such an aesthetic and sensorial pleasure, taking them out and putting back in. It has been amazing to watch her play with those. She has been using them every day.

A little preview.. I'm going to write about these separately, maybe in Montessori Eesti blog.

2,5 is a big deal. Why are Montessori materials from 3 or 2,5 years of age? Because children enter the next sub-plane of their development. Until now it was the unconscious age. But now the conscious begins. And I think we can already notice that in Adelaide. She surprises us every day with her difficult thought process, and how she's able to think of things.. And tell us about them. She also has entered the period of "why?", she asks that a lot now. Sometimes out of nowhere. For example, once she asked me: "Mom, why do you have eyes?", or other time: "Mom, why can't you read books that are in Estonian?" 
Yeah, this is one example of conscious vs unconscious. She now understands, what is Latvian and what is Estonian, and that Mr. Husband talks Estonian, I talk Latvian and she talks both. (She really needs a boost in Latvian though, that's why I was really looking forward to going there, she understands everything perfectly and can talk, but it feels like Estonian is coming out easier, that's why she often answers in Estonian). 

Other example is that this year we can talk about Christmas. A year ago there was not much of point to talk about it beforehand, I guess we still read books, but in the books she recognized the things she already knew about.. This year, she is starting to put it together. Only a few times we read about winter and Christmas, Christmas tree.. And later she immediately knew, when she saw it somewhere.

But about today.. She chose everything. I asked a couple of days ago, what cake would she like for her birthday. She said: peppercake cake. :D (gingerbread cake) So I made it, gingerbread cheesecake.

Today I asked if she wants to put her birthday dress on, she did, and then I offered her a few choices, and she chose this one. Then I asked, which balloons, how many of each does she want. I had bought yellow and pink. We have been using pink a lot for her (I like pink), but I have noticed, that maybe she likes yellow.. And today I asked: "What is your favorite color?", she answered: "Yellow. And pink is your color!" :D But then she still wanted to make two yellow balloons and pink one too.

 

Here she's eating the peppercake crust for the cake. :)

I said, let's make the photo-session! And she immediately wanted to, and went to get the lambskin. :D Because we have been making Jasmiina's birthday pictures on it. Adelaide is still "being a baby", or copying Jasmiina a lot. 

She liked the cake. Blew off her own candles (burned her eye-lashes a bit!), and I believe she has enjoyed her birthday. :)