Last weekend we went to 2 parties, Leilani had a lot of fun, as did everyone else.
Julian playing the ukulele:
Arietta, Andy and Leilani in the hottub (Daddy loves these sitting-down parties :-)
Makanakai
Thanks Koa for the nice photo!
OK, sentence number two: Leilani was patting my arm and kept repeating “Mama Pa Pa”. Since we used to point to or pat the person referred to while teaching her who Mama and who Dada is, I thought she was just showing who Mama is, and kind of ignored the Pa Pa… (Yes, that’s right this is the Mama…) When I realized she was saying Patsch Patsch (German for pat pat) and I repeated the sentence as “Mama Patsch Patsch,” her face lit up, she seemed so happy that I understood. Oh, and she can say the “s” now, at least in her favorite word: “Puffs”
The unhappier news of the day is, that Leilani had a well-baby-exam. She was well before the exam… She had one vaccination and blood drawn from the fingertip for an anemia test, and screamed hysterically for a total of about half an hour. I think she felt sick most of the afternoon, only recoverd after several hours. It made her go to bed early though.
Leilani has been talking up a storm in these past few days. Most words are not yet recognisable, but she understands a lot. She can purr like a cat, pant like a dog, makes car (and tricycle) sounds, if I ask about the sheep she goes Baeaeae, and the newest addition is -Maehaehae – the goat. Mama and Dada have been used more and more correctly, and puffs, her favorite food, puffed kamut and rice, she has used understandably for at least 10 days. She often repeats words that I or Andy say – Duckie (the name of her little duck puppet), beach, ball, and of course Milch (milk in German). Unfortunatelly the sounds are not clear – she can’t do u or s at all, and the o sounds more like a – ch, k and g are indistinguable, as are p and b, d and t (well, I am not a prime example of doing these right either…) and if 2 consonants follow each other… Oh, and she babbles, practices sounds (and sign language) without meaning anything in particular… and we don’t know if it is English or German… Anyway…. Today in the evening she sat next to me, going “mig mich mik…” I more or less ignored her, sitting at the computer, thinking she was talking to her toys. Until she pulled herself up on my chair, looked at me and said: “Mama! Milch” – she really wanted milk too! I’d vote that as an official first sentence!
I was emptying the dishwasher, and Leilani took off, crawling as fast as she could. After putting away the dishes I had in my hands I followed her to the livingroom, and with a sense of panic I realized she was not there. I ran into the play room, and found her happily petting Jojo, who obviously enjoyed it!!! I watched them, and except for a few hair and tailpulls Leilani seemed gentle enough. Looking back I realize both cats have been a lot more trusting for quite a while now.
At a recent party Leilani and Ian were playing, passing back and forth a little white ball – the first interactive game I ever saw between them. They had played with parents, toddlers, kids before, but not with each other. Karla and I had to help a little occasionally, but they had initiated it, and kept it going too.
A little girl, about 4 years walked up, and took the ball from Leilani. Since little girls are often fascinated with babies I thought she wanted to play with them. I was a little dissapointed that the game had ended, but anticipating a new one to begin. Unfortunately I did not like what I saw. The girl was holding out the ball to the babys, grinning as they reached for it, and then she teasingly pulled it away, repeatedly. Leilani was frustrated. Not wanting to scold someone elses kid, we distracted Leilani with Andy’s camera (waterproof and fairly throwsafe). Leilani grabbed it happily and crawled off – not to far though, because the girl ripped the camera out of her hands and proclaimed “This is not a toy. You can’t have that.” Then she tried to take off with the camera. We were pretty angry at her by then. Andy told her she could not just come here and take all the toys from the babies and I took the camera from her, probably not much gentler than she had taken it from the baby and gave it back to Leilani. The “game” repeated. The girl pulled the camera from Leilani’s hands, and declared she could not have this, and I scolded her, that it was none of her business, and it was perfectly OK for Leilani to have the camera if her parents gave it to her.
At that point her mom – who was nursing the 6 months old brother gave me stink eye and called her daugther over. I was a little embarassed to have lost my cool, but kept watching the little girl. She came back, took Ian’s blanket and walked over to the 1 year old birthday girl, repeatedly throwing the blanket over her head. I was kind of happy that it was not my business anymore, and let the other adults deal with it. The longer I watched the little girl though, the more I felt sorry for her. Both her parents were at the party, her grandmother, and the grandmother’s husband, and neither of them paid any attention to the little girl – but everyone was playing with the little baby brother. For an hour and a half, the little girl wandered around, occasionally teasing a baby or a dog, and obviously very lonesome. Fortunately then the bigger boys and one of the dads started a football game and let her play with them, and she seemed so happy…
In any case, next time I’ll interfere earlier, and try to understand the motivation before I lecture a kid. I also added one more concern about having a second baby…
On a lighter note:
Leilani and Ian playing ball
