Ramblings.

Tenemos que arreglar la calle porque esta MUY OSCURO!

This was her technique for stalling getting into the car last night - she wanted to play outside but I wanted to get to the grocery store. So she balked at the car door and started pontificating about whatever she could come up with in the hopes that she could redirect me into playing outside instead. That line above was her opening volley and it worked. I laughed a little out loud and followed her up and down the the block as she narrated. It was 6pm, totally dark out, and there was an inch or so of snow on the ground. But we were letting THCSITU sleep since he'd gotten up with her during half of her night wakings and spent most of the day single parenting while I was out.

When she says stuff like that, it's usually accompanied with some hilarious gesture mimicry - she takes her finger and uses it to sort of accentuate her point, whatever that may be. It's sort of halfway between a finger wag and a "Eureka!" motion. I'm not sure where she got that from.

In general, when she really gets going, she will construct these incredible run-on sentences, usually using a single connecting word repeatedly: porque, pues, y, or despues. By the time the "sentence" ends it's so far from where she started that the whole thing makes no sense at all. One clause porque another clause porque a different clause porque...

Her use of "esto" is really hilarious. It's totally correct, but just so entertaining to hear her say it. I'm not sure why.

Also, the "muy oscuro!" referenced in the first line is a phrase she's had for months. She has this great inflection when she says it, very dramatic. MUY OSCUUUUUUUUUUUROOOOO!

Things she says

tememos
This one is a good 6 weeks old. She was so proud of herself, using it CONSTANTLY. I'd walk in the door in the evening and she'd look all around for something. "Mami! Tememos... *grabs first toy she sees*... jirafa!"

Yo te cargo!
Of course, we ask her this *all the time*. So, when she wants Up, this is what she says. It's especially sweet when she's in tears, standing there with her arms up, offering to carry us.

Me ayudas!
If she wants help with something, she simply groans, "Ayuuuuuuda!!" (I don't know why the groaning. But it's always groaning.) But if she wants to participate in something (unloading of the dishwasher, for example), she comes running over, saying, "Help me!" as her offer to provide assistance.

No quieres.
In the same vein as above. When she's done with her plate, or decided she doesn't like whatever's on it, she picks it up with two hands and thrusts it in your direction, telling you about how you don't want it. She uses it to talk about her needs and wants other times too. She'll point to her chest and say, "*Her name* no quieres" if she's telling you about something she doesn't want, or something that she didn't want earlier that day. Interestingly, she rarely uses 3rd person with this one. For instance, she'll tell you about what her Cat in the Hat does or doesn't want, but she'll say "El gato no quieres..." She rarely makes that error with other verbs, but nearly always does with querer.

The Guajolotita makes 4 word sentences (and longer) as a matter of course now, almost always in the 3rd person. "El camion pasa por la calle," for instance (I'm counting that as a 3 or 4 word sentence - she uses the correct articles but I'm not gonna count them as separate words for this purpose.) There are also plenty of times that she sort of strings some nouns together and adds a verb, sometimes conjugated, sometimes not, to get her point across. She uses 1st person conjugations appropriately on a daily basis, but not *reliably*. That is, she might say "Quiero comer!" at one point during the day, but she will more frequently just holler, "Comer camote!" or "Comer avena con pasas!"

She seems to be starting to make the conjugations herself. As shown above, most of the time it's rote memorization, simply repeating back the phrase in its entirety however she hears it, which generally means incorrect conjugation. (She's not actually planning on carrying me.) But every day she tries it out on some of her most-used verbs (as you can guess, "comer" is one of those!). Juego, como, quiero... can't think of others just now.

Stupid Christmas ads

Things I do not want in our house:
- barbie anything
- disney anything
- any clothes with any licensed characters on them
- tutus
- princess anything
- baby dolls
- those hallmark book & toy sets I keep getting advertised on Hulu
- jewelry, purses, makeup, nailpolish for little girls
- any electronic toys
- those recordable books, except we will get one or two for family in Mexico to record stories on. Otherwise I think they are lazy - reading should be a bonding experience where the parent/grandparent is reading TO the child. Physically present.

The princess/baby doll stuff I know will happen in a couple of years, but right now she is thrilled with what she has - Pat the Bunny and the bear-like creature from Hop on Pop are her favorite stuffed animals. No need to coach her in the ways of girly crap - other little girls will unfortunately do that to her soon enough.

Sickness: pregnancy

Being deathly freakin ill for 7 weeks while caring for a sick toddler in the nights.

She spent her first fall sick the whole time too - 24 hrs of totally healthy before the next wave of boogers/flu/whatever hit. This is a fully vaccinated kid who plays outside EVERY day and eats all her veggies voluntarily. Fall is just her season to get sick I guess.

Her sleeping patterns had improved greatly - even occasionally slept through the night. But the stuffiness and attendant coughing and inadvertent waking up means *I never sleep either* so I haven't recovered at all.

It doesn't help that while pregnant there's not too much you can take for just plain ol sickness. Vit C drops and a humidifier. One of those nose strips and a box of kleenex to go to bed with. One day I stayed home even though the sitter came and just slept whenever she took the kid out of the house.

By the end of this illness I started to cry in the daytime just out of sheer exhaustion. No one at work ever caught me though, thank goodness.

Baby talk already being left behind

The Guajolotita #1 has said "co-co" for "conejo" (rabbit) since July. In the last week or two she's increasingly switched over to "conejo". New rabbits seem to be "conejo" but old rabbits, which were already "co-co" - like in Pat the Bunny - are usually still "co-co".

She calls the baby bunny in Goodnight Moon "co-co" but the nanny bunny "conejo".

More sentences and toddler logic

Sep 27th:

She says "edificios" like this:

"Vicios"

which is hilarious.

Oct 1st:

She's in the bath and I've just turned off the shower head after rinsing her hair. She reaches up and says,

"Ahi viene la lluvia!"

A favorite catch-all term of hers now is, "Pone!" to put together a lego car, to put a sticker on her belly, to wrap her up in a towel or blanket, to assemble a puzzle. Sometimes it's "Pone this!" or "Pone... this one!"

Oct 3rd:

"No tienes zapatos."

She got real shy right after she said it, she knew she was trying something new I guess? Totally impressed by appropriate use of "you" instead of 3rd person. Usually she says "No tiene zapatos" as in, "Mama no tiene zapatos" but today she branched out.

She used "yo" correctly once last week too, I forget the sentence though.

Despite those grammatical leaps of progress, she still calls me "tu mama". Since about 2 weeks ago, she learned from everyone else to say "tu mama" instead of "mama". I presume between my suegra, the babysitter, and THCSITU telling her "Tu mama esta trabajando" or "Daselo a tu mama" or what have you, she rechristened me "tu mama". When she pulls out my license, which she loves to do, she points at my picture and tells me proudly, "tu mama!"

The talking never stops!

We noticed some new things in the Guajolotita's speech: She is making short sentences. Two of today's sentences were:

Vamos a la calle!
*Aunt's name* toma agua!

Last week, she started to say "a la calle" as separate words (probably in her mental grammar it's all one thing, but she pronounces them with the appropriate separation). And then today she put the verb and the rest of the predicate together: Vamos a la calle!

Tonight, at dinner at "Gappa"'s house, there were 9 of us including her. There was a pause in the conversation, and she called out across the table to my sister. Then she continued her order: "*Aunt's name* toma agua!" This time as well, she put the appropriate amount of pause between the words. She was instructing her to do it, and watched until she did. None of us had offered her water in the last couple of minutes, or been talking about water before hand. I guess she just decided that her aunt needed a drink?

Then tonight, this one I especially loved. She asked to read "Tu Mama" which stands for "Éres tu mi mamá?" which is the Spanish version of Are you my mother? a very nice P.D. Eastman book which has been a favorite for months. I took the opportunity to read to her sitting on the toilet, so she could get that done before her bath, and I'd be able to strip her from the waist down, making the bathtime transition easier.

We were reading, and she was skipping around in the book. She grabbed all the pages and started letting them slowly flip by with her thumb, as she usually does when she's looking for something specific ("El gato!" "La lancha!" etc.). She was letting them go pretty quickly, so I laughed and just stated,

"You have to be a speedy reader, 'cause there's so, so much to read!"

She stopped flipping the pages and looked at me. She was thinking about something and looking at me intently. Then it came to her: "Eyes Shut!!" I was absolutely tickled that she recognized the line and said yes, of course, she could certainly have another book given the fact that she'd called it, so to speak.

So I went and got I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, as she sat there on the toilet with her bath waiting, and she turned each page and waited for it to be completely read (instead of skipping ahead) up until we got to the page with the line I'd quoted earlier. She looked up at me when I read that one, and smiled sort of perhaps to say, "See, there it is!"