Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Cousins
Kara and Eric are here for the summer so the girls are getting to know their cousins. They were jet-lagged the first day and were sleeping so soundly that I walked around their room taking pictures:
Danya:
Tima:
Ella:
After that, they all got to play in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard; the weather was even warm enough for the pool.
Danya:
Tima:
Ella:
After that, they all got to play in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard; the weather was even warm enough for the pool.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Update: 1 1/2 years (plus a little)
Our computer is on the fritz (I dumped water on it-- I guess the plant above the computer wasn't the best idea) so we don't have any new pictures just now. But I thought I could write about the girls.
Their language continues to take off. Now they speak well enough that strangers can understand some words, like 'up', 'back', 'eat', 'baby'. Others, like 'fouder' (flower), 'dud' (done), 'muddy' (mommy), are only interpretable by those of us close to the girls. They've also started connecting some words. I had thought the transition to sentences would be sudden but it seems to just be the pairs of words are getting closer and closer together. There is still a gap, when you can practically hear the wheels turning in their heads, to come up with the next one. But every day it seems closer. Probably the most amusing phrase is 'get-eey' (get it) as in: "Did you drop your spoon?" "Spoon... daddy... get it".
It seems they take turns doing something: for a while Mae was saying words constantly while Adi just seemed to take it all in. Now Adi is the talkative one, narrating the pictures in the books or the scene unfolding as we stroll along, while Mae is quieter. Adi points out the birds, squirrels, trees, moon, girls, boys, toys, rocks, water, flowers, bugs (bees). When asked if she is a boy or a girl, she says 'boy'. She also thinks that Mae is a boy and I'm a boy; turns out that Grandma Bundy is the only girl around her. She seems pretty good at identifying other boys and girls so I'm not sure where it is coming from!
Mae has been working on her colors; she knows black, green, blue, red, white, pink and (of course) purple. It seems that colors are very important to her. Her fashion sense is getting more and more insistent; yesterday I found myself tricking her into choosing a shirt I deemed acceptable to wear to a party (though not my first choice). She has her favorite socks, shirts and pants and doesn't seem to notice how they all go (or don't) together. And I have to enforce the 'no changing clothes once you're dressed' policy daily; when the new summer clothes came out there were no less than 4 shirts that she wanted to wear. She can pull them over her head so ends up with a stack around her neck. Sometimes, when I tell her she can't wear some shirt because she already has one on, she nods solemnly and says 'Adi'. As if at least someone should get to wear it.
Mae is regularly running now and Adi can get both feet off the ground when she jumps on the mini-trampoline (she hasn't done it again on solid ground). They are both starting to climb a little bit; we're taking a gymnastics class at the Louisville rec center and they go up the little jungle gyms like monkeys (and then say 'stuck', 'help' or 'down'). So far they're both staying in their cribs, which is lucky! By counting her bruises, we can say that Mae is currently more adventurous but Adi has her fair shares of tumbles. The other day she fell out of her little rocking chair (both of them like to sit backwards and rock) and, as she was crying, she told me 'tip'.
My favorite story is from the playground, where both girls were stomping in a puddle. Later, I prompted Mae (with Adi's help) to tell the story to her grandparents.
"What happened to your pants today?"
"Wet"
"How did they get wet?"
"Puddle"
"What did you do to get them wet in the puddle?"
"Sit!"
Just this morning, Adi was insistently telling Dave a story. "Tide ow... bite... Daddy" Finally he realized that she was relating how he had put her in time out for biting Mae.
They play together a lot, but a few good minutes often ends in screeching or crying. Their favorite games are peek-a-boo in the curtains or behind a chair, chasing each other around our kitchen/living room wall ('chase') or a game they invented called 'push' where one of them walks slowly backward until the other one pushes her forward. Last week this escalated into Mae pushing Adi down several times but that has been an isolated event so far. They sometimes 'fight' over toys and are really playing, just tug-of-war or something, but often I have to break them up. I've been saying that whoever has the toy can play for one minute and then has to give it to her sister, but right now they interpret that as having to give it away immediately. Which they do so and then cry.
Adi also tried to get Mae to give her a horse-back ride the other day; Mae was crawling and Adi said 'Horse' and Mae said "Neigh!" and kept crawling, with Adi trying to get on her back. It didn't work but it was funny!
The cutest thing is how much they like kissing and hugging each other. Getting Mae to give Adi a kiss is an almost fool-proof way of getting Adi over some trauma or other. Adi has occasionally wanted to hug someone at the playground, which is surprising as she plays quite independently. Mae seems to like to hang out with bigger kids and will just stand around watching them, even if they're being pretty wild. Both girls like to give kisses and hugs to characters in books who appear sad in any way (or sometimes just for the heck of it) which is very endearing.
Their language continues to take off. Now they speak well enough that strangers can understand some words, like 'up', 'back', 'eat', 'baby'. Others, like 'fouder' (flower), 'dud' (done), 'muddy' (mommy), are only interpretable by those of us close to the girls. They've also started connecting some words. I had thought the transition to sentences would be sudden but it seems to just be the pairs of words are getting closer and closer together. There is still a gap, when you can practically hear the wheels turning in their heads, to come up with the next one. But every day it seems closer. Probably the most amusing phrase is 'get-eey' (get it) as in: "Did you drop your spoon?" "Spoon... daddy... get it".
It seems they take turns doing something: for a while Mae was saying words constantly while Adi just seemed to take it all in. Now Adi is the talkative one, narrating the pictures in the books or the scene unfolding as we stroll along, while Mae is quieter. Adi points out the birds, squirrels, trees, moon, girls, boys, toys, rocks, water, flowers, bugs (bees). When asked if she is a boy or a girl, she says 'boy'. She also thinks that Mae is a boy and I'm a boy; turns out that Grandma Bundy is the only girl around her. She seems pretty good at identifying other boys and girls so I'm not sure where it is coming from!
Mae has been working on her colors; she knows black, green, blue, red, white, pink and (of course) purple. It seems that colors are very important to her. Her fashion sense is getting more and more insistent; yesterday I found myself tricking her into choosing a shirt I deemed acceptable to wear to a party (though not my first choice). She has her favorite socks, shirts and pants and doesn't seem to notice how they all go (or don't) together. And I have to enforce the 'no changing clothes once you're dressed' policy daily; when the new summer clothes came out there were no less than 4 shirts that she wanted to wear. She can pull them over her head so ends up with a stack around her neck. Sometimes, when I tell her she can't wear some shirt because she already has one on, she nods solemnly and says 'Adi'. As if at least someone should get to wear it.
Mae is regularly running now and Adi can get both feet off the ground when she jumps on the mini-trampoline (she hasn't done it again on solid ground). They are both starting to climb a little bit; we're taking a gymnastics class at the Louisville rec center and they go up the little jungle gyms like monkeys (and then say 'stuck', 'help' or 'down'). So far they're both staying in their cribs, which is lucky! By counting her bruises, we can say that Mae is currently more adventurous but Adi has her fair shares of tumbles. The other day she fell out of her little rocking chair (both of them like to sit backwards and rock) and, as she was crying, she told me 'tip'.
My favorite story is from the playground, where both girls were stomping in a puddle. Later, I prompted Mae (with Adi's help) to tell the story to her grandparents.
"What happened to your pants today?"
"Wet"
"How did they get wet?"
"Puddle"
"What did you do to get them wet in the puddle?"
"Sit!"
Just this morning, Adi was insistently telling Dave a story. "Tide ow... bite... Daddy" Finally he realized that she was relating how he had put her in time out for biting Mae.
They play together a lot, but a few good minutes often ends in screeching or crying. Their favorite games are peek-a-boo in the curtains or behind a chair, chasing each other around our kitchen/living room wall ('chase') or a game they invented called 'push' where one of them walks slowly backward until the other one pushes her forward. Last week this escalated into Mae pushing Adi down several times but that has been an isolated event so far. They sometimes 'fight' over toys and are really playing, just tug-of-war or something, but often I have to break them up. I've been saying that whoever has the toy can play for one minute and then has to give it to her sister, but right now they interpret that as having to give it away immediately. Which they do so and then cry.
Adi also tried to get Mae to give her a horse-back ride the other day; Mae was crawling and Adi said 'Horse' and Mae said "Neigh!" and kept crawling, with Adi trying to get on her back. It didn't work but it was funny!
The cutest thing is how much they like kissing and hugging each other. Getting Mae to give Adi a kiss is an almost fool-proof way of getting Adi over some trauma or other. Adi has occasionally wanted to hug someone at the playground, which is surprising as she plays quite independently. Mae seems to like to hang out with bigger kids and will just stand around watching them, even if they're being pretty wild. Both girls like to give kisses and hugs to characters in books who appear sad in any way (or sometimes just for the heck of it) which is very endearing.
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