SHE is a Twitter Twin

Word associations

Tonight we were lying in bed before she went to sleep and she was wanting me to sing the "x" song. In other words, sing "we're going to kentucky" but replace all the lyrics with "x". She will often pick mommy, ayi, daddy, and gran to fill in. It goes like this:

me: do you want mommy to sing a song?
S: hai yao
me: what song?
S: mommy
me: (start singing mommy song)
S: (interrupting) daddy
me: (start singing daddy song)
S: (interrupting) ayi
me: (start singing ayi song)
etc.


Tonight the order of subjects went something like this:
mommy
ayi
daddy
gran gran

moon
star

ernie
big bird
elmo

poo poo
diaper
mommy

It was interesting to see the train of thought of 16 month old SHE!

Dereal = cereal

Tonight she was flipping through Goodnight Moon and telling me everything on each page enthusiastically. She pointed at the mush (which I always call rice cereal) and said "dereal" (prounced "duh real") and Josh and I were like "whoa! So that's what she's been saying!" She sits in her high chair and asks for "dereal" and I keep thinking she is saying "da wheel" and wants me to sing "Wheels on the bus", one of her favorite songs. Duh!

Figuring out Sierra's accent has been so interesting. Most words are obvious, but some take some time! Still haven't figured out audubah (or however you spell it), for example.

SHE's got four crayons

dokkia

I meant to mention this a few weeks ago. Sierra likes to go around a pick up dirt (as in even little tiny bits of paper) off the floor and throw it in the garbage. She says "dokkia" when she finds something. At first I thought she was saying "dirty" but then I figured out she was saying "yucky yuck", which is what we've been trying to teach her in order to stay away from dirt, garbage, cat food, etc.

SHE likes playing with Jaden

SHE's wearing her favorite sweater

SHE's bedtime

SHE's all a-twitter

Passport photo

Special Guest Naya (aka Ya Yo)

SHE's a budding Picasso

She loves drawing. Sierra says "crayon" and I give her her container of crayons. She just draws long lines right now, or at least that's what they look like to me! I ask her what she drew and she almost always says "doggy".

Note that she is right handed. We are pretty sure now based on her drawing with her right hand.

SHE the meteorologist

2 weeks ago, Josh carried SHE down the stairs and she pointed at the skylights and said "raining". Today it's raining again and she is running all over saying "raining raining" and pointing at the skylights and out the window.

SHE's a meow meow

SHE's drinking her bedtime tea

Sierra really likes chamomile tea. Order of beverage preference:
1) nai nai
2) chamomile tea
3) fresh squeezed orange juice or blended grapes
4) chamomile tea
5) water
6) dou nai (soy milk)
7) niu nai (cow milk)

She is really not a fan of cow milk.

SHE's on her throne

SHE's all smiles

SHE's thinking "next song please"

Written 3/18 at 12:51:
Sierra does this thing where she will have us sing songs or play songs on her iPod. We start a song, she listens to the beginning, and then says "no no no" and gestures no with her hand (waving back and forth) very seriously. Then I say "do you want to listen to another song?" and she says "hai yao" and I say "how about ?" and she says "hai yao" and I start singing/playing that song. And the process repeats. She does this when I sing songs to her to sleep and also in the kitchen while she eats and well all the time!

Also, when the song is almost over or just ending (bc she recognizes this fact), she says "ge ge" "ge ge" asking for more music. She says "hai yao" if she wants the same song played.

I've been using music to get her to eat spoonfuls of food.
Me: do you want me to sing a song?
SHE: hai yao
Me: Ok eat one bite/spoonful then I'll sing.
(SHE opens her mouth and eats it.)
Me: (singing)
Then we repeat.

Otherwise she turns her head far to her left and avoids the spoonfuls!

SHE's playing hide and seek

Sierra loves hiding behind the doors upstairs and having us try to look for her. When we find her, she has the biggest smile and says "hai yao!" asking to play again!

It started over a month ago where she had so much fun with gran and Liling hiding behind the door. Later she decided to do it and she's been having fun with it ever since!

SHE's a wet noodle

Sierra asks for "mian mian" with her meals. She loves noodles. I leave them soaking in the fridge so they are soft and portion them out as finger food for several meals in a row. Other favorite finger foods: cereal (like chex), crackers (like organic Ritz and goldfish), baked puffs (like veggie flavored Pirate's booty).

SHE's not feeling the bestest

Here she is wearing a big t-shirt to keep cool and comfortable with a fever.

[Written 3-11-11 9pm] Sierra got her first bad cold (first fever, 3rd cold. Her 1st cold was last summer and was just mild sniffles a couple days. Her 2nd cold was in November and was congestion for a week). It started with daddy coming home with the sniffles. That night, Sierra kept waking up hot. The next morning she was better but that afternoon she felt hot. She was 101.5 that afternoon and the next day. By the 3rd day, the fever had subsided, but she was really congested and could hardly sleep. She was up most of the night the next couple nights. We elevated the head of her bed. I held her upright for her naps. I nursed her multiple times at night. Even though Josh held her upright to sleep, she was still waking up every 15 minutes. We called the advice nurse one night in the middle of the night. Perhaps she had a sore throat or a headache, she suggested. (It will be much better when she's older and can tell us what she's feeling.) Mudder thought the humidifier might have been making it hard to breathe and maybe she had croup. It was crazy. Fortunately (knock on wood) she is getting better now. Mudder and my immune systems were stressed after so much sleep loss. Now I have a plugged nose, Gran has a cough, and Liling has a sore throat.

cah, cah, cah...

I can't believe I haven't blogged this yet, but Sierra loves her flash cards. Months ago (around her 1st birthday?) I was surfing Amazon.com and noticed there were all these cheapass flash cards (crappy printing and pictures <$2, free shipping) for ages 4 and up, but they were getting some nice reviews. I wondered whether S would enjoy them given her love of books. Then I found a review from someone who found their toddler who loved books also loved the cards. What the heck. I ordered a set of basic words. Once they arrived, I opened them and went through the deck with her. And Sierra was hooked. She'll head straight for the cards and hand them to us and say "cah, cah, cah..." (note the accent and how she doesn't prononce the r if it's not at the beginning of a word. It's kind of like a british accent, come to think of it.) until you go through them with her. She learned most of the first deck. I ordered another deck. And another deck, and another. I've lost track. She loves them all. Gran at one point got fed up with cards flying all over her room and bought a set of plastic drawers to put them in. She took them out of their boxes and threw away the boxes (thinking they were mostly torn). But now SHE had no way to go around carrying a deck and saying "cah, cah, cah" I looked on Amazon to see if we could buy card boxes. And then realized how idiotic that was since a deck was like $1.80. So I ordered more cards so she could use the boxes. :)

I should note that in browsing cards on Amazon, there are some nice ones with real photos and some touch and feel ones, but they were relatively pricey and came with fewer cards. As in $10-12 a deck. The one thing I don't like about some of her cards is these terrible cartoony depictions of some things that are really misleading if you're seeing them for the first time! Like a cheap cartoon of a purple cat walking upright wearing a tuxedo. I mean, come on! Cats do NOT look like that! They are not purple and they walk on all fours, and they do NOT wear clothes and a top hat! Anyway, I tried to pull out those cards and shove them in a drawer. I mentioned buying some nicer cards to Josh and he said no we should just be cheapass parents. Sigh.

Anyway, I should also note that in browsing cards on amazon, I noticed there is this popular book called "why flashcards are bad" or something like that. I think the author's idea is that they promote rote memorization and not using your imagination and creativity. I can see that for the older kids (ages 4 up) that the cards were intended for. But at her age, it's really not any different from looking at picture books, just with a different, more fun (to her bc of all the entropy - toddlers love entropy) form factor. In any event, it couldn't be worse than screentime, which all the books (and the AAP) recommends avoiding until age 2. Screentime (whcih includes computers and the iphone) is supposed to be really bad for the brain, like it shuts down the brain.

And on that note, as much as I protest, Josh has found that Sierra loves some of the kids' iPhone apps that he has downloaded, such as this cat that mimics back whatever phrase you say in a chipmunky voice. Sierra finds it loads of fun to babble at this thing. She asks Josh for the cat when she sees the iPhone. Actually, she hasn't as much lately since Josh has been avoiding giving her the phone, but she was for awhile there.

And then there's gran who REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to show her Sesame street on TV REALLY REALLY badly. It's to the point where she finds youtube videos to show her since she thinks that's not the same as TV. Uh, not. And so now Sierra is addicted to Elmo videos on youtube, and you know how you start one video on youtube, and it suggests all these others? Well, she also now knows and loves Dora the explorer "Dora! Dora!" and this blue dog that's popular ("doggie"), I forgot the name. And then the other day I went downstairs and she was watching British kids on youtube singing "if you're happy and you know it" really fast and dancing clumsily. It was the worst video ever, but mudder said "it makes her eat!" (since she is getting really picky, more on that in some future post) and of course there she was, swaying to the beat in her high chair and exclaiming "hai yao!" (more!) each time it ended, so that mudder would then play it again. Oh boy.

Speaking of which, she glommed onto Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie, Dora, and the blue doggie like, IMMEDIATELY. Clearly, these children's enterprises have done some big time research and development when they created these characters. Amazing.