What does it mean?

Any Spanish used in blog posts is hyperlinked to its English translation.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Escuela

Jan 9th (1st day of school)

9:21am

Proud of us today: 50 min from waking the kid up, to in the car on our way to first day of "school" (montessori preschool that accepts 2 yr olds). Did #1 and #2 on the potty, ate 2 eggs with pesto and half a grapefruit, dressed, teeth brushed, and hair done. Un-freakin-believable (to me). I heard her start to scream for me as I left her there but I am having faith in her personal strength that she'll have a fun morning after all.

(P.S. those achievements were on her part, not mine. I did shower and make breakfast before waking her up, but my teeth are NOT brushed yet - garlic breath to talk to her teachers this morning, go me - and I'm wearing the same pants we flew in yday)

P.S. again: checked my phone and got a pic from a teacher via text of her happily "working" within 30 min of being dropped off. All is fine.

3:25pm

P.S. again: she named her baby doll "Alex" this afternoon, I'm assuming after a kid in her class. Promising, I think. However, this was also followed by "No me pegas, Alex" ("Don't hit me, Alex") so I'll wait to celebrate that one...

Jan 19th (end of first full week of school)

Last night was bad (how does a kid wet the bed twice in one night when she's had no nighttime accidents in weeks?) But this morning my husband got up with her, loaded&ran the dishwasher, and made breakfast! Amazing and so very much appreciated.

Jan 21st

Friday night was bad, but last night (Sunday night) was SO MUCH WORSE. I think this is worse than newborn sleeplessness because I don't have the bonding hormones making me delusional over my beautiful child AND because I have lots of anxiety that if she and I don't sleep NOW, how in the holy hell will we sleep after there IS a newborn here IN 9 WEEKS?!? freaking out. freaking the F out.

Jan 23rd (second day of second full week of school)

She mostly slept through the night last night. She went to bed with relatively little fuss (yeah, nearly an hour of singing and convincing to stay in the bed, but few tears) and then slept from 930-5. I gave her some water and put her in bed and she rolled over and fell asleep till 730. I think she did it just to screw with me.

Jan 24th

7:30am

I don't even know how many times she woke up last night. I knew she slept well one night just to mess with me.

1:22pm

NO TEARS at dropoff this week. 2 days, the teacher met her before her actual classroom and led her by the hand. Today, she just left me behind and climbed up the 3 steps herself (as I took off running so she couldn't look back at me and waver). I think a late dropoff (caused by NOT SLEEPING ALL NIGHT) is actually helpful because none of the other kids are crying when she gets there. She gets upset when kids cry.

Jan 29th (second day of 3rd full week of school)

UPDATE: SHE SLEPT THRU NIGHT LAST NIGHT. 2 DAYS IN A ROW HAS ENTERED CLASSROOM HAPPILY AND ON HER OWN - NO SUBTERFUGE OR HANDHOLDING. I ALMOST CRIED WITH HAPPINESS!!! THIS IS THE BEST DAY!!!
 


Sunday, January 27, 2013

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!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

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.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

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.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

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.

Monday, October 8, 2012

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".

Monday, October 1, 2012

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!"