Year: 2007

Recently we had several real conversations with Leilani, and her sentences are getting longer: “Mommy, come. Follow me. Follow Leilani, running. Dady come too. Chase me.” was her record today. I think she walked / ran / was chased about a mile at the park…

Climbing at one of the old playstructures at the Wailua Houselots park.

Andy writes: another conversation I had earlier today:

— Leilani, what did we have at the beach yesterday?
— Nam-nam! (I was trying to get her to tell about the campfire)
— That’s right, we had a picnic. And how did we cook the food?
— Fire!

Indeed, yesterday was Kamehameha Day (photo), and we did all those things with some friends from the usual gang. I did explain to her about the fire and cooking food (a concept she seems to understand) at the time, and she was very good around it. But today, I did not rehearse the answers with Leilani, it’s the first time I’ve seen her process and talk about a pure long-term memory (no reminders from us and no photos to look at).

With Joseph, Jaya and Eden at Rock Quarry Beach

Leilani finally drinks (soy) milk

Leilani had to go to her 18 month checkup on June 7th (her 18 month birthday). She impressed doctor and nurse by using words like polar bear (looking at a book) and phrases like “Thank you aunty” (when she got a sticker).

She is far ahead of her growth and developmental schedule and there are no other concerns either. She got 2 shots and a TB test within a minute and barely cried – and thanked the same nurse for the band aid and said bye-bye to her.

Her measurements:

Leilani and I were looking at pictures of marine life, dolphins, whales, fish, anemones when she realized she wanted to watch her favorite fish, Nemo. Jojo came and interupted the session and finally Leilani thought of her cousin Kiron and how far away he is.

Andy had put Leilani in the car and I was leaving in a hurry. Leilani kept repeating the same word, and I could not understand it. I asked what she was saying, and she switched to English: “Leilani buckle in.” I realized she had said “Anschnallen” (buckle in in German) earlier, just pronounced it really badly and stopped the car right away. Sure enough we had forgotten to fasten the seatbelt. I was so proud of her!

Since Sunday she is having a toothache and being very clingy, whiny, hyperactive, and doesn’t want to sleep, is picky eating… Fortunatelly Andy is helping when I need a break.

Leilani’s pottytraining is making good progress, after the slight regress caused by travelling back from Austria and jetlag. All her recent poops went in the potty, she has napped in underpants quite a few times without an accident, and frequently runs around the house naked or in underpants without accidents too.

She really enjoys having people sing to her, to look at books, and often to hear the entire story too. Her recent favorits are the rainbow fish books, and other books of the same author. I ordered 4 of them in French too, so Andy can read them to her. She likes puzzles and painting and coloring with crayons, plays with her stuffed animals and her baby-doll, with trains and matchbox cars. While eating she likes to listen to and watch wind-up music boxes.

She is a total Nemo fan, she got introduced to him as in-flight entertainment. I got her the movie for watching at home (yes I do remember what I said 1/2 year ago about TV movies and the like… I’ll write a seperate article on that).

When we went to Walmart she saw Nemo T-shirts shorts (the kind American little boys are wearing for swimming and that make the Europeans laugh…). Unfortunatelly the T-Shirts started at size 5, and the shorts at 3… I got her the shorts (more like long pants on her), that was a week ago and we have not been able to wash them yet, because at first she couldn’t stand to part with them, last 2 days it has been rainy, so we don’t have a lot of (solar) hot water and can’t do laundry. They are so dirty that I don’t let her wear them anymore, and she understands this, and that we can’t do laundry in the washer. Today she stood in front of the – obviously running – dishwasher, pointed to it and suggested: “Leilani Badehose waschen!” (German for “Wash Leilani’s bathing shorts!” I thought that was pretty funny, but also a sign of very advanced thinking – a workaround solution – and explained that the dishwasher was only good for dishes and the cloths still had to go in the regular washer downstairs.

[Andy adds: I finally washed the shorts today. I had to hide them in the dirty laundry and then carry them to the washer while Sonja had Leilani. I had her when I emptied the washer, and I had to distract her and hide the shorts again in the pile of wet laundry. Then I hung them on the line behind a big sheet when she wasn’t looking. I had to do all this to avoid her seeing them and wanting them. She’s usually fairly good about listening to the explanation about why she can’t have them yet, but I didn’t want to take the chance nor take the time to explain. Otherwise, Leilani really likes to help with the laundry, putting dirty/damp/dry/clean clothes into and out of the basket/washer/drier.]

Mostly German… here the transcript: Kind (child), baby, hallo, [does a somersault] somersault, somersault [laughs] another, [plays with plastic heart that opens and Leilani can’t shut it anymore] broken [Andy confirms] heart [I confirm]…[Leilani starts singing and playing xylophone and tambourine] Vidiralala, Vidiralala, … [sees her crayons] malen (painting) … ants … another dinosaurier … [chimes ring] dingdong… [Andy asks “Who’s that?”] dinosaur [Andy corrects, dragon, dragon makes music] Ei-ei drachen (petting the dragon) anziehen (meaning aufziehen, wind-up) drachen anziehen [ Andy turns it back on, asks if she is not scared ] das da? hallo hallo [music off ] anziehen [ music on ] Affi tanzen (Monkey dances)

Reading jetzt (now) Dinosaurier schau Mama (look mommy) Stegosaurus [I say “Wer is das (who is that)”] Tyranosaurus Rex… [ points to next book] Katze Paula (Cat Paula) [picks up a Lion mask ] Mamma Loewe anziehen (mommy put on the lion) Lani Loewe anziehen [ next book, children are fighting over a net, others carry a blow-up dolfin ] Mein Netz … Fine tragen (Carry [Dol]fin)…Segelboot (sailboat)…ruderboot … [ picks up a kleenex and starts wiping Andy’s ears ] Daddy ohren putzen (clean daddy’s ears)