Thursday Bathtime

Bathtime!!

IMG00120-20090129-1919.jpg

I'm back

After a long - too long - hiatus, I've returned to the blog. Yes, I'm still posting at Facebook and yes, I'm busier than ever... But, I will find the time to parallel post to this site. In fact, there are ways of tying the two together which I've tried in the past. The bottom line is that I'm going to make an effort.

I've relinked my blackberry to the blog which was probably the major reason for my inactivity. We'll once again be posting extemporaneous photos via Blackberry...

Oh and the music below is from an Australian band.

Empire of the Sun - Walking On A Dream

A very important word

I can't believe I forgot this one. She started saying it in early November. We haven't practiced too much since then, but we will continue to work on it.

bama - OBAMA!!

New words mid-January 2009

Willa has a few more new words that I wanted to keep track of:

1. Tata - tickle
2. Ooyoo - orange
3. Doodzie - Lindsay
4. Bataa - Bartosh (little boy at school)
5. Wye-wee - Riley (girl at school)
6. Koo - school
7. Wazzit - what's that
8. Juh-juh - Justin
9. Owee - ouch
10. Moymoy - Mwemwe (the nickname of her primary teacher at school)
11. Pata - pasta
12. Ka - cat (finally!)
13. Liya - Olivia (teacher at school)
14. Mee - Mia (friend from school)
15. Ree - Sriram (friend from school)
16. I can't reproduce it in my head, but she did try to say Joaquin today (another friend from school)
17. Woo - Luke (uncle Luke!) - not to be confused with "woo woo" which is dog
18. Hiny - no translation needed
19. Heddo - hello
20. Boto - lentils
21. Javi - Javi (short for Javier, friend from school)
22. Lexa - Alexa (friend from school)
23. Berga - Burger
24. She attempted to say broccoli, but it was a jumbled mess...A for effort, though!

And a few new signs:

Water
Milk
Fish
Brush teeth
Cereal
All done

She caught the cold that I had, so she coughed all night long and woke up a few times. I feel bad for her because I know how I felt with this cold (and I was taking cough medicine, Mucinex, and eating cough drops). As of this morning, our daughter has become a non-stop snot machine. Her nose will not stop running!!

Before her cold, she did many funny things this week. When you say raise the roof, she starts dancing and pushes her hands toward the ceiling. Future club kid?

She's also become very interested in her food. This week, I made sloppy joes and she garnished it with cheerios and peanuts. Sounds unappealing to me, but she ate it! The next night, I strained the brother from the chicken soup I had made, so she had a bowl of noodles, chicken and vegetables. She added cheerios and popcorn to it - and ate it! Every bite had to have a cheerio or piece of popcorn. I figure if that's what it takes for her to eat the dish, it's okay with me. Last night, I heated some sausage and chicken for her, put cranberry relish in the other part of her plate, and put a little pizza sauce on the side (she likes to dip her food). She ended up dipping her spoon in the pizza sauce and then in the cranberry relish and eating it. Yum!

She also had pinkeye last week so we've had to give her eyedrops. By the third day, she was reaching for the eyedrops and trying to put them in her eyes. It's amazing how much these little people observe.

No pictures today; just stories. Hopefully we'll have some photos soon. Now, back to wiping a certain little girl's nose...

Willa - Future Fashion Designer?

So Willa has this habit where she insists on looking in her closet and picking out a bow (coat, which in this case is a hoodie or sweater). Girlfriend likes to layer, I guess. If we're anywhere near her room and she doesn't already have a hoodie, sweater, or fleece on, she walks into her closet, points, and says "bow". I pick her up and she has to pick out the bow to wear.

Yesterday, she was wearing a blue and white argyle shirt and black pants. We went through this little exercise and she picked out a pink hoodie. A short while later, she wanted to pick out another bow. So I picked her up and let her look around the closet, thinking we'd do a swap. She reached into the back of her closet, where some of her outfits for spring (Christmas gifts) were hanging. She picked out a green dress. The green dress is size 24 months; 18 months fits her well right now, but she certainly still has room to grow in this size. Needless to say, I knew it would be a little big.

Willa insisted on wearing this dress, so we took off the hoodie, put on the green, flowery dress, and then had to put the pink hoodie back on. The pink actually worked with the dress; if the leggings had not been black, the outfit might have looked alright. The dress still had the tags on, which I thought was fine, that she'd have this dress off within five minutes. After an hour or two, I figured I should rip the tag off.

She took a nap and then we went for a walk (still wearing said dress and hoodie). The bundling up process covered everything but her pants, so she looked okay. It was kind of nice, so we decided to swing by the park for a few slides. At this point we realized that her dress was hanging out of the coat and that she looked ridiculous. Markus tucked her dress into her pants, giving her a bubble butt and bubble belly. When we got home, we took these pictures to remember Willa's first foray into fashion. Oh yeah, this was taken at the end of a busy day of playing, hat-wearing, and napping so her hair is all disheveled, too. As if she needed any help looking crazy.

20090104 - Crazy Willa Outfit

I made a few other posts tonight so scroll down if you'd like to read more and see pictures from Christmas.

Pictures from Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas and were fortunate to see many members of our extended families (who were all very generous, particularly to Miss Willa). The best part is that we didn't get sick after Christmas this year! We were exhausted after all of the excitement and were thrilled to have a long weekend to recover.

Willa enjoyed Christmas, but I think her favorite part was being an elf: handing out presents, and helping put the trash in the bag. She's very much into putting things away right now. I know this will not last. But it's nice right now. Anyway, she got lots of new toys and clothing and has been enjoying many of them on these long holiday weekends that just ended. The little people, her purse, Legos, crayons, rocking horse, puzzles...time to start phasing out the remaining baby toys to make room for the new ones. We cleared out the coffee table from our family room area so that she has space to roam around and spread out her toys and play.

Here are some photos from our trip to the Boyometro, as we call it.

20081225 - Christmas and Christmas Eve Pictures

Willa's Words at 20 Months

Here goes...

1. Apple
2. Manna (Banana)
3. Nyyyye (Nice, which means cat)
4. Mao (Meow)
5. Puppy
6. Woo Woo (former word for puppy, until she started saying puppy this week)
7. Baa (for sheep/lamb)
8. Happy (today's new word)
9. Boo (Boot; today's other new word)
10. Book
11. Mee (Eat)
12. Cwacka (Cracker)
13. Takoo (Thank You)
14. Bebe (Baby)
15. Potchy (Tchoupi, which is a character in one of her little French books)
16. Peepee
17. Poopy
18. Potty
19. Wawa (Water and Willa)
20. Bow (Coat)
21. Dao (Belly - don't ask me, but she lifts up her shirt constantly and shows us her "dao")
22. Ear
23. Nooo (Nose)
24. No No No (no need to translate)
25. Yah (Yes)
26. Eye
27. Deet (Feet)
28. Doo (Shoe)
29. Niw (Milk)
30. Nye-Nye (Night Night)
31. Wack (Quack)
32. Ear
33. Hair
34. Hanna (friend from school)
35. Sadie (friend from school)
36. Didi (for Didi, which is what she calls my mom)
37. PopPop
38. Doody (for Dani, which is what she calls Markus' mom)
39. Maa (Max - friend from school)
40. Nao (Nell - friend from the neighborhood)
41. Harley (the dog next door)
42. Alan (our neighbor with the dog)
43. Helene (our neighbor with the dog)
44. Mommy
45. Daddy, sometimes called Di-Da
46. Elmo
47. Waydo (Radio)
48. Psss (the sound of peeing)
49. Yay
50. Hi
51. Ball
52. Wayzee (Raisin)
53. Chee (Cheese; another new word today)
54. Cup
55. Up
56. Down
57. Out
58. More
59. Bye Bye
60. Wow
61. Ott (Hot)
62. Ahhh (after a long sip of water)
63. Bean
64. Cookie
65. Bottle
66. Two
67. Five
68. Momo
69. Key

Wow, more than I thought! I'm sure there are more, but her vocabulary is expanding so rapidly. She's also learned some new signs. Now she can do the signs for:

Eat
More
Please
Thank You
Shoes
Socks
Cracker
Banana
Bath
Sleep
Hat
Bus
Hurt

That's all I can think of. Not bragging, just trying to keep a record of what she can do and when. :-)