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.

Desire to read

Elena was paging through a book last night. She got a little upset, got my attention ("Look at me!"), and stated very deliberately and forcefully, "I can't read!"

I blinked a few times.

Staring into my eyes, again she says with even a little greater desire to communicate, "I.. can't.. read." It was bothering her this time.

I told her that we can learn to read.

She pointed to her book. "O. Another O. Two O's!"

Wow. She knew what she was talking about.

We'll have to take advantage of this while we can.

-- Erich

To clarify, she was actually saying the short vowel /0/ sound, not the letter name.

-Serena

Mexico with Mercy

Mercy took the initiative to get herself a passport so we could take her to Mexico. She got to try boogie boarding for the first time and enjoyed swimming in the ocean. Elena loved playing in the sand, running from waves, collecting shells, and other sorts of basic beachy activities. We also ate LOTS of mangoes, sometimes the mango-on-a-stick on the beach but more often mangoes at home from the local fruteria. Elena loves the mangoes and can easily polish off a whole one by herself.

I got to take a private, two-day course in Spanish which I found very useful. I practiced talking in Spanish about various issues in Psychology (sleep stages, parts of the brain, etc.), as well as getting some solid instruction on when and how to use the subjunctive. I'm excited for my next week-long immersion course in August. My hope is to someday be able to advertise myself as a Spanish-speaking, ASL-capable therapist. And then to live in an area where I can use both ASL and Spanish regularly... Well, that would be fantastic.

California with Mercy

One thing I love about Mercy is that she does not require fancy equipment to be entertained. She got great enjoyment out of swimming in the pool with Elena, picking oranges off of the tree and eating them (or making fresh orange juice!), and if there was ever a lull, she was perfectly content to read one of her books. Plus, she helped a ton with mundane moving tasks, which we greatly appreciated.

The Western Slope

We have moved from Colorado to California. We did so by driving a moving truck and our car separately, and we brought our dear friend Mercy with us. She's 13 years old and helped us with Elena on the drive and for a while after in California. On our way to California, we stopped at our friend Alexandra's farm on the western slope of Colorado.

Pictures:
Alexandra and Mercy on one of our walks on the farm; Mercy, with Elena enjoying running down the hill.

Breckenridge

In May, we went to Breckenridge with our friends the Kuhlmans. It was a wonderfully relaxing trip during which we learned to play Mahjong with the traditional Chinese rules. Elena was rather entertained by the Kuhlmans' then-4mo daughter, Ella. She displayed an interesting anti-jealousy: she would become upset if I were holding Ella and went to give her back to her mom, and she frequently asked me to nurse the baby.

The picture is Elena, on one of our many walks into town.

Imaginative play

Lately, Elena has been very into imaginative play with invisible objects (as opposed to imagining that her stuffed bear needs to be fed or whatnot). She will reach her hand into something (her pocket, a bag, etc.) and pull out an invisible Something. She hands it to me (or whoever) and says, "Want it?"
"Sure! What is it?"
Her answers have ranged from various foods (carrots, asparagus, ice cream... after which she'll ask, "Like it? Yummy? Very tasty?") to "Ladybug!" to, lately, "Present! Open it!"
Often, when I open the present, it's a book. She asks me to read it and I make up a story or imagine some pictures and talk about them. Just this morning, I opened her present and asked her what it was. She said, "Bible! Read it?"

Nothing like a two-year-old to test your scripture memorization.