New things

This morning, Elena woke up briefly, singing the ABC song. She got through about a third of it and fell back to sleep. When she woke up again a couple of hours later, she was singing the rest of it. At least when she's awake, she can get through the whole song by herself--and she's finally nailing the fifth at the beginning.

Elena is very helpful. She is pretty good about putting stuff away after she uses it and cleaning up after herself. For example, yesterday, she spilled some fish food on the floor. When I found her struggling to pick it all up piece by piece, I gave her my mom's floor sweeper and she did the whole sweeping up job herself.

She is also learning to peel garlic. Now that we're cooking with my parents, we go through a LOT of garlic. If there is garlic in a meal here (and there usually is!), it's always at least a full head. So that's a lot of peeling.

She's been getting interested in Spanish lately. She's learning it in a very second-language way, which is not at all my preference, but it's better than nothing, I suppose. She's picking up that everything in English has a "name" in Spanish, so she's been asking what it is. Ajo (garlic) and manzana (apple) are favourites. She's also been digging the colours--it's a total crackup to hear her say "ah-SOOOOL!!" (azul = blue).

As much as I can converse reasonably well in Spanish with an adult, I have a really hard time speaking Spanish with Elena. The sorts of things one says to a child are different, and often in command tense. I learn a LOT from listening to native Spanish speakers talking to children.

Next week, Erich and my mom take over the bulk of daytime childcare as I start work, so hopefully they'll be blogging as well.

Elena rides the ponies!

I took Elena to Market Night here in Redlands a few weeks back. She expressed a desire to ride the ponies, and I decided to risk paying for it. Historically, though she's been interested in activities like this (bouncy castle, etc), once I've paid for it, she balks and doesn't ever actually do it. But in this case, she was more than happy to follow the worker and get on the horse, without me even nearby. Though she wore a serious expression throughout, I think she genuinely enjoyed it because she has talked about it since and has asked more than once to do it again.

If only I could adjust the depth of field on my iphone camera...

Practice conversations

It's fascinating to listen to Elena talk to herself. She often seems to be practicing social interactions. For example, as she was walking through the backyard, she pointed to random things and said, "Please have this? Okay! Please have this? Okay! Please have this? No!"

She also can be heard saying "Thank you very much! You're welcome!" at random intervals.

Mexico with Samantha and Alistaire

After our trip to Mexico with Mercy, we headed south again with our friends Samantha and Alistaire. (The picture is Alistaire on the beach.) We had a very relaxing time. I took Elena to the beach every day before lunch and was able to read a pleasure book while she played in the sand. Elena also enjoyed interacting with Samantha and Alistaire, who became experts at making tunnels out of couch cushions.