SHE's a graffiti artist

The Color Purple

Gran got Sierra some crayons for her in Alaska. They are smaller crayons, not the giant chunky 8 pack she had. She is ready for that size.

And wouldn't you know it? She still picks up the purple one first thing and carries it around. She must like that color!

Talking herself to sleep

Post from daddy:

Sleep training has been quite an exercise in patience, but last night was special.  We went through the normal sleep routine: nursing, reading books, mommy leaving, 10 seconds of crying after mommy leaves, reading more books, saying "do you want the stars and the moon?", Sierra agreeing, turning off the lights and on the stars, and then putting her head on the pillow.   After all that, it usually takes Sierra another 10-15 minutes to fall asleep where she tosses and turns, sometimes cries, and I sing songs or put my hand on her back to help her fall asleep.  But last night, after doing those things for a few minutes, I decided to act like I had fallen asleep myself.  (some previous nights I had fallen asleep before her, and I think she falls asleep quickly after).   So I laid very still, and Sierra stopped asking me to sing songs. Instead, she started talking to herself.  First Mommy, Daddy, Gran-Gran, Naya, Lemma. Then more and more words. She was going through her entire vocabulary.  I remember her saying "dan dan (eggs)", and "bin dan dan (her version of belly button)".  After saying at least 50 words, she feel asleep herself!  Talking herself to sleep.  So cute.

SHE is a daredevil

Post from daddy:

As part of the weaning Clover mentioned, I decided to take a few days off from work this week to catch up on sleep since I knew I would be tired. One nice part of this is that I got some extra time to play with Sierra during the day.  On Wednesday, we (me, Gran-Gran who just got back from Alaska, and Li Ling) took Sierra to Jackson Park in Mountain View.  We first visited this park two weeks ago for the Easter Egg hunt and were impressed because it had a play area that was really designed for toddlers!  So we walk over to the toddler area and Sierra immediately starts looking around and saying "dan-dan" (chinese for egg) looking for eggs from the Easter Egg hunt.  How smart that she remembered this is where we hunted for eggs!   Anyway, after 10 minutes of playing on the toddler-sized structures and sand, Sierra looked across the park and saw the much more attractive structure for older kids.  She started walking across the grass towards that, looking for eggs along the way.  When we get to this structure (clearly not designed for 18 month olds!) she says "up up" and wanted to climb on it.  So we carefully take her up the steps and let her crawl through the tunnel.  As she walks around more, she spies a really long slide and starts walking towards it and saying "hua ti ti" (chinese for slide).  It is a complex slide with a tunnel at the top and you come shooting out at the bottom and also pretty steep.  So I carefully hold her hands as she climbs up the steps.

So brave: At the top, she wants to let go of my hands, gets down on her knees, turns around, and pushes off.  Gran-Gran caught her at the bottom.  The first thing she said at the bottom is "hai yao!" to go again. This time she lets go and gets going down the slide even faster!  After Sierra was having fun doing it, a 2 year old wanted to come check out the slide. Her mom helps her up to the top of the slide, but she freezes and decides that it doesn't look fun and starts saying "no no".   What a little daredevil.

Weaning the dawn nursing

Since last Friday, we have been trying to wean her from her 4-5am nursing. This generally means she is getting up at 6-6:30am. Tiring. Especially for Josh, who is up with her at that hour. (I am banned from the room.)

Ma yi

Ma yi means ants in Chinese and she Looooooooves this word. She uses it on ants and any other bug, mosquito, whatever. She opens the front door and there are these flies and she goes "oy ohhhhh" and shudder her arms and goes "mayi!" It's adorable! 

The other day she was eating sticky rice (one of her faves) sprinkled with seaweed and she pointed at the seaweed sprinkles and said "mayi". 

Today for lunch I made a famous Chinese dish "Ants climbing a tree" with bean thread noodles and bits of chicken meat (the ants) stir fried in. She enjoyed it. I was inspired by the book "Hungry Monkey" that Diana gave me of a foodie father making all kinds of dishes for this toddler. Ants climbing a tree was her favorite dish.

Straining

For the longest time (though sadly less and less), Sierra does the cutest thing. She loves it when you try to strain to do something physical, like lift something heavy or especially when you pull her cards out of the box when they are tightly in there so you pretend it's "hard" to pull them out. You just give her this look like gritting your teeth and making this "eeeeehhhhh" noise (this is hard to describe in writing but much more natural if you could see it :-) ) and she does it too. So much so that she even shudders while she does it, she is "straining" so much. The other night, I asked Josh to try to get it on video and she kind of did it for a second, but nothing like before. Maybe this cute behavior is slowly going away... :(

My Renkoo T-shirts

I have all these old Renkoo t-shirts. Renkoo is an internet company founded by Josh's friend. Their T-shirts have cute (Japanese style) cartoon animals on them. Sierra loves pointing out things on our t-shirts. When I nurse her, she always looks at my t-shirt and points out everything on it before starting. Tonight, I had on a Renkoo shirt with a dragon boat and little animals paddling the dragon boat. Amazingly, she pointed out all the animals one by one. She immediately started with "lao hu" (the tiger), and then would pause and think in between the next ones since they honestly do not really look like the real animals (think cutesy Japanese version). Finally, she pointed at the dragon head on the boat and thoughtfully said "alligator".  I was impressed!

Twinkle twinkle little "dar"

She has gotten into twinkle twinkle little star lately. I think it's bc gran gran started singing it to her and pointing at the star out the bathroom window before she gets ready for bed.

Last week we had her lullaby playlist playing softly in the background and as soon as twinkle twinkle little star started, she perked up and said "dar". 

I put it on infinite repeat on her ipod while nursing and everytime the song ends, she pulls off, says "dar", and then when it starts again, she continues nursing.

SHE loves her new photo album

SHE never does this!

SHE made a pile

Like her mommy, Sierra enjoys playing with sand (and if there's no sand, then the wood pieces on the ground of playgrounds). Here she is making a pile of wood pieces on the slide. She probably would have done this for an hour if it were up to her. She protested when we tried to get her to go.

Sierra was really daring on the slides at this playground, where the slides were steep!  She kept saying "hai yao!" to go down the slides.

This was Linda Vista park in Cupertino. We had the whole toddler playground to ourselves! Josh thinks it's bc it was Easter Sunday morning.

SHE's frolicking at the park

SHE likes her Wells Fargo balloon

SHE's walking with mommy

SHE's sitting on a pile of books

Blueberry picking

She has been enjoying reading the Teddybears' Picnic lately. It is wonderfully illustrated. There is a page where the bears are throwing pebbles playing bocce or something. Somehow she thinks they are blueberries. Maybe Liling thought they were blueberries. In any event, she points and says berries or blueberries. Josh got this idea to pretend to pick the blueberries and feed them to each other. She really enjoys this - she takes her hand and plucks the blueberries from the page and puts them in his mouth. I'll say "Can mommy have some?" and she'll pick some and put them in my mouth. "How about Sierra?" and she'll pick some and put them in her mouth and smack her lips pretending to eat them! We can do this for awhile.

Sierra's accent

I love her cute accent at this age. I really should try to record it. The problem is everytime I get out the camera, she runs up and says "camera" and wants to look at the pictures!

Some of my favorites (before she loses them!):
ko-la-la: koala (and she only does this sometimes, like when she sees the picture of herself with her koala one piece. the rest of the time, she says koala.)
tah-tol: turtle
dellow: yellow
ah-vuh: avocado (she used to say ah-vuh way back as one of her first words. But she has lost it and now says avocado)
dar: star
moo: moon
cah, cah: cards, cards (though I noticed today she was saying "cards", so she is losing this one)
grans: crayons
nu: No she used to say nuuuu with her lips pursed and very cutely. She doesn't do this as much anymore. She just says No.
Bus: Buzz (Lightyear doll). She lately has been asking for him once in awhile.
bin dun dun: belly button (she likes pointing out my belly button just before nursing or she'll pause nursing, point, and say "bin dun dun")
ah tah tah: an shen cha – calming tea (chamomile tea) 
binda: panda
Bibimbap – bumpity bump
dereal: cereal
all den: all done (used ALL the time) when she doesn't want more/doesn't want to do something

Big words

Sierra just surprised us by opening up a Home Depot ad and saying "barbecue" where they were advertising barbecues. 

She knows quite a few long words now. This will have to be a running list because my mind is blanking now.
barbecue
guang gao dan
alligator
watering can
avocado
camera
apple tree (she loves this because it connects two words that she knows well)
helicopter (she loves this Vtech hand me down musical helicopter from Inn. We used to use it as a special car-only toy to get her to sit in the car without crying, pre-December when she would not tolerate the car. I was never comfortable with this bc it is hard (plastic), so I finally brought it in as an inside toy. It is really a toy that has appeal for multiple stages. It has a string you can pull it with. After she learned how to walk, we thought she would enjoy pulling it around, but actually, it was another month or more before she enjoyed pull along toys. And now she really enjoys pulling it around. )

Also see next post: Sierra's Accent

No longer Mama and Ya-yo

Josh just pointed out yesterday that she knows how to say "Naya" now. I said "no, really?" And Josh said "Who's that?", pointing at Naya and she said "Naya".

She went from "Mama" to "Lemma" some time ago. So they are Lemma and Naya now.   It's kind of sad to see her lose her sweet little Sierra accent as she grows up so fast.

SHE's a hugger

SHE's saying "smile"

In this photo, we are saying "smile" to Sierra and she is saying "smile" back. Haha.

Sierra and the Purple Crayon

The box from Sierra's set of 8 large Crayola crayons is long torn apart. We have put her crayons in the Buenos Aires zoo souvenir animal feed cup, which has a handle on it so she can carry it around.  And the crayons have all been broken into pieces by now (with us throwing away the pieces that are choking hazards), EXCEPT for the one purple crayon. I have no idea why. Everytime she asks for her crayons, she pulls out the purple crayon and proceeds to carry it around with her EVERYWHERE and scribble with it on random places, like guang gao dan (newspaper advertising inserts in Chinese) and her many greeting cards that she still enjoys going through.  She likes it when I go through the cards with her one by one and she draws a little scribble on each one, pauses, and waits for me to pick up the next one. She would make a great assembly line scribbler. ;)  She even holds it while I'm changing her diaper. I finally have to take away the purple crayon from her when she isn't noticing (which is not easy) bc we don't like to give her crayons unattended.

Btw, we borrowed Harold and the Purple Crayon for her from the library and she showed no interest.  It's all in purple, black, and white and she likes more vivid drawings. I think the story line is too advanced for her too.

Speaking of colors, Sierra knows all her colors in English now, especially green, blue, brown, red, yellow, pink, and purple. Not as much orange (which often looks like yellow) and black.  She has a nightlight "glo man" that gradually changes colors from red to pink to purple to blue to green (or something like that) and she excitedly announces the colors as they change. She has memorized the order and says the color as it just barely starts to change. Early on, she would demand that we change the colors of the stars on her projector turtle. The choices are: green, blue, and yellow. She'll say "boo!" and you have to go get up and change the color. Then as you are about to sit down again, she'll say "green!" and then you go change the color. Then as you are just sitting down again, she'll say "dellow!" (which is how she says yellow). It's a game to her. :)

She also recognizes a few letters and maybe numbers...

A few weeks ago we went for a walk at SCU. We parked in front of a frat house that had greek letters (including some roman letters) and she immediately pointed at the "T" and "K" and said them, which caught me and Josh by surprise. We had no idea where she was picking this up!  She also recognizes stop signs, as she did as we crossed the street. Josh says "what's that?" and she says "Stop". 

The other day, I pointed out a few letters (magnets) on the refrigerator and then played the "where's the [letter]?" game with her. She got them all right!

Last weekend, I showed her a card that had 3 animals on it. (These are counting cards, but I just use them to show her the objects). I asked "what's that?", expecting her to say the animal name, but accidentally showed her the back (where there was a "3") instead of the front. She said "three!". I was like, what? And then I realized she was reading the 3. That was pretty amazing. It could also be that she just likes saying 3. Like daddy says "1, 2..." and she says "three!"

SHE likes peacocks

Today we went to the Full Circle Farm Earth Day festival. There were chickens by the entrance and she said "bock bock" at them a bunch. There were various booths and a petting zoo. What was her favorite animal at the petting zoo? The peacock. As soon as she entered, she wait straight for it. She pet its body, then neck, and then tried to poke its eye. :(  After that I kept a careful watch on her hand to keep it away from the peacock's face. She also was attacted to this white chicken with strangely fluffy feathers. I encouraged her to pet the bunny and the pig. But she kept going back to the peacock.  She also really enjoyed petting the adorable baby goats just outside the fence.

It was the same rent a petting zoo company that our neighborhood block Halloween party rented last Halloween. All the animals were amazingly well behaved; I am sure they were selected for their docile temperaments to be in the petting zoo. However, I felt bad for the animals since all day their life was about little kids poking and prodding them.

They had 2 giant pumps of Purell that I saw parents putting on their kids after the petting zoo. I put some Purell on Sierra afterwards, but it didn't get rid of the dirt, so I wiped it off with baby wipes. Then Josh got 2 cups of water and we rinsed off her hands. 

On the stroll back, we passed a feline rescue group's booth. They had someone dressed as a cat in one of those Disneyland type costumes with the big head and body. My mom has a picture of me scared away from a Cinderella costumed person at Disneyland when I was like 3. Sierra, on the other hand, was like "meow meow" and enjoyed this creature waving at her and saying hi. As we walked away, she kept saying "meow" because she wanted to go back to see this giant cat. I don't know if she really thought it was a cat. Talk about a ginormous cat.

The petting zoo was really dusty and at her height, any slight breeze kicked up the dust all over her body. We washed her hair and give her a bath that afternoon (after she refused to nap), even though she bathed on Saturday and shampooed on Thurs. (We usually bathe her every other day and wash her hair once a week since she hates it.)

SHE's taking care of her garden

Ra ra LOVES using the watering can. She asks for it with her Sierra accent while pointing at it out the window.

SHE hunted Easter eggs

We joined an easter egg hunt for toddlers born in 2009. As we crossed the park to meet the group, you could see plastic eggs everywhere and ra ra said "dan dan, dan dan" (eggs in Chinese), excitedly pointing at the eggs.

Where's the tree book?

So I bought another pop up book this week. This author got rave reviews on amazon for all his pop up books. this one is Jingle Bugs that is Christmas themed and has a tree with Xmas lights that lights up and plays music, according to the description. Now, Sierra LOVES Christmas lights. So despite her being half Jewish, I went for it. And surprise, surprise, she LOVES the book.

The last 2 nights, after dinner, she has told me "up up book book" (i.e., I want to go up so I can read the book) since we have the book upstairs. I ask her "which book?" and she says "tree".  So we head upstairs to read the book. Tonight I had this great idea to hide the book (she loves hide and seek) with the music playing, which is fun because you can listen for it to help figure out where it is.  She LOVED this game. I would run ahead and hide it in one of the rooms, and then say "eeee? where's the book?" while shrugging my shoulder with my hands in the air, and she would look all over.  After a few rounds, I was going to stop, but she got behind me and pushed my butt to go hide it again.  It was quite a lot of running trying to get ahead of her to hide the book before she could see it, because she would run after me from behind, and she is a fast runner now!

I should mention that when she is particularly surprised by a hiding spot, when she finds it, she will inhale "huh!" in surprise.

Tou fa

Add "tou fa" to the list of words that Sierra likes to whisper (for some reason; again, if only we could get into her little toddler head and understand :))  Tou fa (pronounced "tofah") means "hair" in Chinese. 

Speaking of body parts, Sierra knows all her body parts in English and Chinese now.  She enjoys pointing them out in the bathtub (and in general; it's like a game to her!)

Bi bim bap

Me: Josh, when she says "bi bim bap", she is not talking about Korean barbecue, ok?
Me: Josh? What did I just say?
Josh: (divers attention from iphone) what?
Me: When she says "bi bim bap", she is not talking about Korean barbecue, ok?
Me: She is saying "bumpity bump". It's one of her favorite verses of wheels on the bus from her new pop up wheels on the bus book. She is asking you to sing it when she says "bumpity bump".
Me: Not korean barbecue, got it?
Josh: ok.
Me: It's funny, huh?


Anyway, Sierra loves books. And Sierra LOVES pop up books. I got this wheels on the bus book for her a couple months ago and it has amazing paper engineering. I was afraid to give it to her since it was so intricate. I finally did recently and she LOVES it. She cannot put it down. Her 2 favorite verses/pages are "the people on the bus go bumpity bump" (you pull a tab and the people bump up and down) and "the babies on the bus go wa wa wa" (you pull a tab and the babies mouths open and close). She sings along too:
Me: The people on the bus go...
SHE: (softly) bi bim bap
Me: bumpity bump,
SHE: (softly) bi bim bap
etc.
(Same for the babies on the bus verse)

She softly sings along, I think bc she is shy about singing. It's very cute. She is more like me in this respect. :)
When she cries, I sing "the babies on the bus go wa wa wa" and she quiets down to listen.

Wheels on the bus book

Sleep training, night 5

I'm not going to call it CIO anymore, bc she isn't crying much other than when I leave for a minute (still hard for me to hear her cry "mommy nai nai"). Josh sings softly to her. She mostly asks him to sing mommy and nai nai, which is sweet and sad, but she does fall asleep eventually. I can see on the monitor that she doesn't roll around much before sleeping (she used to roll all over the bed in October when she slept thru the nite for that month.)

Ardenwood Historic Farm

Sunday we went to Ardenwood historic farm, which was really nice. We started by taking a horse drawn train and then she got to pet the horse afterwards (I asked if she wanted to pet the horse. Answer: hai yao!) (While we waited aboard the train for them to start, the horse was tied up on the side, and Sierra kept begging to see/go to the horse ("mang, mang" she said, leaning towards the horse)). Then we walked around looking at the chickens, peacocks, bunnies, tractors, sheep/cute lambs, horse. Yes, tractors. She kept wanting to go back in the barn to look at the vintage tractors (which were ginormous, esp compared to her), saying "tractor" and pointing back at the barn. We soon realized that these tractors have some sort of magnetic appeal to toddlers bc 2 other toddlers (1 boy, 1 girl) dragged their moms in to see them repeatedly. We got to pet another horse later. She pet his ears. Josh said "what does the horse say?" and she said "neiiiigh!". The docent was impressed. :)

Sierra really liked the peacock initially (though later when we saw a peacock spread its feathers, she was nonplussed). But, we picked up a brochure on peafowl on the way out and she enjoyed reading it ALL the way home and kept exclaiming "peacock!"

I should have posted this months ago, but forgot. Liling has taught her to say "mang mang" and bow when she is asking for help. The expression is really "bang mang" (literally: help busy), which means "please help" in chinese, but she just says the mang part. It's super adorable. She bows her head really fast a couple times in a row when the request is urgent (which is pretty much all the time - what isn't urgent to a toddler? :) )

CIO, nights 3 and 4

Sunday night, I nursed her, and then left Josh with her in the room (as the previous 2 nights). She cried mommy nai nai, which was really sad when I left. But to my relief, within a few minutes, she calmed down and I heard Josh singing some songs she was requesting (see previous post about how I sing the same word again and again). I peeked at the video monitor later and she was rolling around the futon trying to sleep. I finally saw her settle her head over the bed roller onto Josh's side (where Josh had fallen asleep on the futon next to her). She was asleep! Not quite as ideal of a location as the 2nd night (where she fell asleep completely on her bed), but good enough! I then snuck in and closed the window (which I leave open every night in case she cries herself into a sweaty frenzy), turned down her ipod (playing lullaby music) and then shifted her back onto her bed (she had by this point rolled onto her back so her upper body was hanging off the edge onto josh's arm that was lying there parallel to her mattress (the futon mattress is lower). It took her about 50 minutes of lying and rolling around to fall asleep. It was 9:50pm by this point. We have to start doing this earlier.

Tonight, she cried when I left (mommy nai nai), which is always the hardest part, but then stopped a couple minutes after I left and Josh sang her some songs. I checked the monitor and she was lying there quietly with her head against the bed roller (perpendicular to it, which she likes to do in general - have the top of her head pressed against a cushion to sleep) and Josh was singing to her. I checked in again a couple times and then she was asleep! Very nice. This time it was about 9pm. I'd say I left around 8:30 or 40. We started earlier tonight, which I think is better.

SHE's sharing her tractor with Jaden

CIO continued

She fell asleep after 50 minutes last night (cried 9:30-10:20) and tonight she fell asleep after 20 minutes (cried 8:45-9:05). (She went to bed later last night bc she napped long and late (3:30-5:30). Today she napped approx 3:15-5.)

Anyway, last night, after she fell asleep, she did not get up until 4:40am for her regular nursing. She fell asleep quickly nursing and then did not wake until 7:50! (Usually she gets up 1-2x between nursing and waking up). She woke up happy.

So the little girl isn't so stubborn after all! She is smart for her age so maybe that has to do with it. She just realized what was going on somehow.

By the way, Josh has been very excited to try cry it out and I (and especially gran gran) have been very reluctant. So Sierra, when you read this in the future: It was Daddy who wanted you to cry!

Napping these days has taken a sudden change for the later. She just will not fall asleep before 3pm most days within the last week or so. It's weird bc she was for awhile sleeping like clockwork around 11:30am (this was during the period where we tried putting her to bed earlier, closer to 7:30pm, since an early bedtime is supposed to have a strong association with sleeping thru the night, hahaha, not!). Daylight savings starting made that 12:30, but nothing close to 3pm (2pm old time). We have not been able to keep up with putting her to bed earlier, especially with daylight savings starting, which is probably better given that josh wasn't seeing her at all after work most days with the 7:30 bedtime. Maybe that has something to do with her not napping at 11:30am anymore, because before that she was consistently napping around 1:30 or 2pm, and that was around when she went from 2 to 1 nap per day (which is the typical age for this). Anyway, the current situation is probably for the better since at 18 months or so, she should only be napping once in the afternoon anyway - and that should last a couple years. It would be nice to have a consistent schedule for a couple years.

CIO, Take 4

So tonight we are trying cry it out (CIO) for the 4th time. 4th time's a charm, right? Well, actually the other times we tried it, we only went for 20 or 30 minutes and she was hysterical by the end (and for the following week, at least the first time), so we had not gone longer. But some books say to go up to 1 hour, so we are trying again tonight. So far, we are at 40 minutes and she is still going.

Josh went to a sleep talk last night by a child psychologist. (Ironically, I stayed home so I could put her to bed at 8pm; the talk ended at 8pm in Palo Alto). Anyway, Josh said it was not very helpful since she was pretty general. Also, a lot of the talk was (understandably) dominated by people trying to talk about their particular issues with their kid, which Josh found annoying. I think a lot of that was kind of interesting though since there is some overlap in behavior and suggested solutions. (Josh had taped it and I listened to the relevant slides today.)

I do think that one thing the parents there had in common was that they breastfed, which I am realizing makes kids needier (or more bonded to you, if you ask La Leche League types). The fact that breastfed infants wake up more often (since breastmilk digests quickly) is bad training for sleeping through the night as the baby ages. Really bad training. And when you formula feed a baby to sleep, I think that is better bc they are less interested in waking up at night for a bottle than they are for a breast. That also helps with sleeping through the night.

I realized this tonight. Josh and I always wonder how come all the parents we happen to be close to don't have to go through sleep training? And then we realized that the thing they all had in common is that they were at least partially formula fed. The only exception is Kim, but I have to say that Max has the most easygoing temperament for a baby that you could ever imagine.

Anyway, I still often wonder if I did the right thing by suffering through those early days so that I could exclusively breastfeed Sierra. Well it's been 50 minutes now and she is quiet. I wonder if Josh picked her up.

SHE's wearing mommy's slippers

She loves trying to put on my shoes and walk in them. Liling holds her hands while she does it. Tonight I did it and Josh took a picture.

Speaking of shoes, she likes pointing at shoes (they are stored by our front door) and saying to whom a particular pair belongs (e.g., Daddy, Mommy, Gran gran, Ayi). She is 99% accurate. (This means both that she is very observant and that we are boring and always wear the same few pairs of shoes. ;P ) She likes pointing at people's things (like our clothes, Josh's computer and remote controls - or at least she thinks it's "his" remote control, and for good reason - he always has them in his hand!) and saying to whom they belong.

SHE's caught in traffic

We got this great Fisher Price Little People Farm set (barn, silo, and tractor) from someone in our neighborhood whose daughter outgrew them. The last few nights, Sierra has really enjoyed riding her blue car and following the tractor around (you push a button and the tractor goes a few feet). She of course goes faster than the tractor and plows into it, and pushes it. Just like daddy in traffic (or at least what daddy would love to do in traffic!). After the tractor stops, she says "hai yao!" and either she or I push the button again.

SHE's reading her library books

Last Saturday, we did something I've been meaning to do for awhile - we went to the library to get books for SHE for the 1st time. She was playing outside, but when she saw us loading up the books in the bottom of her stroller, she completely refocused on the books and got all excited, saying "books books". We've just given her a few books a day since we got so many. Some are hits, other misses. She likes the simple ones with photos that teach you words. She's too young for story lines right now. We can't really read her stories yet and just point out things on each page and talk about them, which she really enjoys. These days, she often points things out before we do.

Today's diao le report

Today, gran and liling randomly put her on the potty during a diaper change and she peed. They gave her some TP and she wiped herself (she loves doing things by herself and this is no exception. I wasn't there for all this, but gran called downstairs to me and said "guess what sierra did? She peed in the potty." I came right up and tried to take some pics of her posing with her potty of pee. Liling was trying to get her to point at it, but she was just wandering around like nothing happened. She then tried to reach in and touch the pee (which she did touch with her finger tip), and we all said "yucky yuck!" and washed her hand.

Tonight, before we changed her to her PJs, we put her on the potty, and she sat there for a bit while I sang, and then she announced "diao le" and pointed in the potty and then said "dokkia" (yucky yuck in Sierra's accent). She stood up. We hadn't heard pee so I was just going to go and change her, but then gran was like "did she pee?" and looked in the potty and sure enough, she peed!

I can possibly attribute this to the fact that she likes sitting on the potty just as a chair (for a few seconds at a time, which is a long time for her to sit anywhere still!), and she also likes coming in when I pee. She follows me in the bathroom, I pee, and then say "all done" and close the lid and flush. Lately, she says "all done" when she sees me get up and close the lid.

The diao le reporter

Sierra has a keen eye for when we (or anyone) drops something. She immediately says "diao le!" ("dropped it!" in chinese) and points at the thing that was just dropped, no matter how trivial. Like bread crumbs. We were walking once and someone at the park dropped something and she dutifully reported "diao le!"

As you can imagine, "diao le!" is commonly used during meal times when she drops food on the floor. Without fail, almost everytime we remove her high chari tray, she exclaims "diao le" again and again at all the food bits on her lap.

It's actually even come in handy occasionally when we've accidentally dropped a bit of food or something on the floor and didn't notice.

Recently, Josh commented that Sierra is our little diao le reporter. That perfectly captures it.

SHE's visiting Mission Santa Clara

SHE's visiting SCU

SHE's talking to Gran Gran

Random notes before I forget

Sierra enjoys throwing her alphabet magnets in the cats' water bowls. She also for a little while was enjoying throwing her crayons at Lemma and Naya. This was before she really started drawing (scribbling with her crayons). When she says "crayons" it sounds like "grans" sometimes to me, which gets me all confused bc I think she wants me to call gran.

Gran has a cough this week and did not come this week except for stopping by Monday while SHE was napping. Gran was getting better last week but got worse after holding Sierra at night in her nightgown with no other clothes. Gran doesn't know how to take care of herself and always puts Sierra first.

Sierra can name most cereals now, albeit with a Sierra accent: Rice Krispies (Ah kuppy), Kix, Cheerios, Chex, Corn Flakes. She also names snacks: crackers, booty (Pirate's booty veggie puffs), bunny (crackers). There are more that I forgot, I am sure.

Sierra enjoys walking up and down the hallway saying "dah dee dah dee dah" again and again while alternately waving her arms up and down (like jumping jacks) when she's in a good mood (which is a lot).

Sierra enjoys reading newspaper advertising inserts, which she can say the word for in chinese. Last week, she was asking for (newspaper advertising inserts in chinese) and I was like "what's (newspaper advertising inserts in chinese)?" and mudder finally heard and said, oh! that's newspaper advertising inserts in chinese. The girl's Chinese vocabulary is already starting to exceed mine. She enjoys looking at the grocery items and pointing out different foods (putao - grapes, rou rou - meat, cai cai - vegetables, broccoli - still one of her faves)

Sierra likes eating steamed chicken drumsticks. We shred and cut the meat into small pieces for her. She doesn't like bread. She loves noodles ("mian mian"). She loves sticky rice (which we sometimes mix with pork sung and japanese dried seaweed sprinkles). She loves broccoli. She also likes green veggies, like mustard greens, which I stir fry and then puree with water or chicken broth.

Gran is constantly refreshing a container of homemade chicken bone broth in the fridge for Sierra. It gives her calcium and protein.

SHE's a farm girl