Things have been heavenly here for a couple of days. Sure my Japanese class is kicking my butt. (I have a lot of studying to do before Tuesday's final exam! That's what I get for joining mid-term and trying to keep up!) And sure I've been busy with about a dozen other things. But Peanut is feeling better than ever and I'm loving every minute of it.
She and I decorated the Christmas tree together. Lately, she's into handing things to people; this makes her the perfect assistant. I have no illusions that this will last. Instead, I took full advantage of this phase while I could! And truly, this activity put me in the Christmas spirit and brought tears to my eyes. I have such fond memories of all the years that I decorated the tree with my parents and my sister and I'm looking forward to sharing that with MY daughter for many years to come.
For the past couple of days, Peanut is also really into snuggling and what my husband likes to call "goro goro." We bought a new "hot carpet" and she adores rolling around on it. She never spent much time rolling around on the floor before. As soon as she figured out she could roll over she wanted to crawl and now she's walking and crawling everything and I usually feel like the lifeguard on duty rather than the mom (which sometimes stresses me out and wears me down). Needless to say I'm *thrilled* to finally be getting to spend a little R&R time with her. Hanging out, snuggling, rolling around on the carpet, laughing and truly enjoying each other's company. Last week by comparison was miserable and this is totally refreshing.
Oh, and one more fun treat. Peanut isn't really speaking any "words" per se although she's VERY vocal (my in-laws are constantly amazed at how loud she is compared to their other grand kids) and she says lots of syllables. Anyway, we're prepared for the fact that she might have slightly slower than average development in the speaking area as we are raising her with both English and Japanese and have learned that's pretty typical and nothing to worry about. We've also spent the last 4 months or so teaching her a few basic signs from American Sign Language. The other night, I asked her if she was ready for her bath and after saying the word (without signing it) three or four times, she burst into a smile and started signing back to me "bath". I just about fell over! She has since repeated this performance and my husband has witnessed it too - it's not just in my imagination. Now we're hoping to teach her the signs for her two favorite foods: banana and apple. I'm constantly amazed at how these little beings grow and develop and start walking and communicating...Makes all the tough moments worthwhile!
Life is good.
Glad that Peanut is feeling better.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a nice time decorating the tree. My K is into taking things off of the tree this year, and with his love for "baa--ll" ahaha...it makes me very nervous when we let him near those shiny things. Good thing we only have plastic ones.
And isn't signing fun? I was so skeptical in the beginning, but now I'm a total advocate. I can't believe the conversations I can have with K just through signing -- even now when he is starting to communicate verbally more and more. It's a very exciting and satisfying feeling when they start signing back -- enjoy!
The sign language is amazing! I'm hoping we get more than one sign out of her, but even if we don't, it's really gratifying to have a sense of communicating with this little person!
ReplyDeletePS: Bloglines won't let me sign up for your feed for some reason. It says you don't have an RSS feed but I don't see why not. Just wanted to let you know.
ReplyDeleteThe sign language is a great idea. We don't do it now but Nora STILL always accompanies "please" with her own special take on the please sign.
ReplyDeleteMy little girl is growing up bilingual, and she hasn't really been delayed, but we didn't start till 18 months. She doesn't really speak much Swedish still but she is starting to. It's such a good idea if you can do bilingual so keep it up!