Playtime is changing

Karina is becoming much more independent in her playing.  Today, she played by herself for at least 30 minutes while I just read a magazine at the table.  It was amazing.  It helped that her dad was home, of course, so she had someone else's attention for part of the time, but he was busy, too.  So she was really just on her own for most of that time.  Then she'd need one of us, and we'd play with her, or do other things, and then she'd be okay for another half an hour or so again.  It's really amazing and kind of great.  She's gotten very busy-always doing something.  Tonight, she suddenly was able to ride her little toy "car" (it's just a little plastic ride-on toy)

(You can find this at a lot of places, but ours came from Toys R Us  via a friend).  It converts to a push toy, and that's how she usually played with it.  For whatever reason, Bill converted it to the car tonight and she just got on and started riding.  We've tried it a couple times before, and she has either not been interested, or couldn't do it and got too frustrated.  I guess tonight she was ready. 

She still loves to be read to and to do her three puzzles.  She is happy being read to all day.  I could literally read to her from the time she gets up until she falls asleep or I lose my voice.  Her puzzles are all by Melissa and Doug, (coincidentally) and are the wooden kind with the little pegs, where each piece is totally separate (as you can see in the picture).  The first one she got was this one of wild animals, that my brother and his girlfriend gave her for Christmas.  The other two I got later, at a consignment shop, because she had gotten so good at doing the jungle one.  The jungle one is a sound puzzle, but we don't have batteries in it because it was acting strange and making noises all by itself.  It was really scaring Bill.  :-)  She can do all three of the puzzles really easily; the only trouble she has is if the pieces are upside down--she doesn't understand the idea of turning them around.  Other than that, the girl can do them lickety split!  The jungle puzzle and one of the others, with farm animals, have the same image underneath as on the puzzle piece.  The third one is a hide and seek style jungle scene, where there are different images underneath the pieces.  She can still mostly do it by herself!  I can't believe how well she does with this one.  She needs help with where a couple of the pieces go, because they look very similar, but other than that she knows them.  She has the most trouble getting them turned the right way--more so than with the other two puzzles, which have clear right side up animals and things--but the jungle one is a lot of leaves and bushes and it's hard for her to tell which way is up for the images.  I finally found a picture of the puzzle online.  (Thanks, Amazon).  See that flower?  There's a bee under it.  And the big leaf underneath it is the one with the frog.  I'm so proud of her for being able to do this puzzle!  (She's funny when she can't get the piece in, if it's upside down or even just not lined up right...she throws it away!)