Friday, November 24, 2006
Uh-oh
Today (while eating a surprisingly spicy dish of Thai fried rice) Melina let out a well-rounded fart and lit up with a big smile. "Noise?" she said. "Yes," we said, that was a noise. A fart, to be exact. Not to be done at the dinner table, but apparently humorous enough to be repeated. For the next five minutes she kept screwing up her face and trying to push out another one. Jeff was in hysterics. Finally she succeeded and just beamed with pride. I can see an embarrassing moment in our dining future.
A personality develops
It's really interesting to see how Melina's personality has developed over the past six or seven months. She's really starting to be her own little person. Compared to other kids I've read about, she seems pretty easy (not many tantrums at all - I can only remember one that would have embarrassed me in public). At this stage, she's very mechanically inclined. She spends a lot of time trying to figure things out, and practices certain skills until she's mastered them. Because of that, she doesn't have a lot of accidents or falls.
In the past month her obsessions have been plastic buckles (like the kind you find on luggage or backpacks), keys, jumping, and shoes. For a few days she spent huge amounts of time trying to fit buckles together and then demanding that they be opened again ("Open? Open? Open?"). Now she has pretty much mastered that skill and is trying to figure out what she can open with my keys. I set up a chair next to the front door so she can practice putting the key in the lock, but she's also happy trying to open the cat's red plastic travel-carrier or, sometimes, the cat himself. She also enjoys trying to fit my keys down the heating grates. Often she will abscond with Jeff's keys and pretty soon you'll hear the car alarm going off because she's pressed the panic button. Oh, the joy of hearing that beep-beep-beep!
And that shoe thing. This kid has a lot of shoes, mostly because she got a bunch of hand-me-downs that are her current size, and her mama discovered that Marshall's is a great place to find baby shoes. Melina just learned the word for "boot" and has figured out how to get her boots on by herself. She gets annoyed and says "no" if you try to help her with this process.
So far, she doesn't seem too interested in creating art (unless you count music and dance). She would rather chew on crayons or take pens apart and put them back together. She's amazingly good at taking off and replacing pen lids. Yesterday we spent half an hour trying out every pen in our pen jar, but she was more interested in figuring out how they worked than actually drawing anything with them.
She does love music, and she has always been into dance. She likes drumming on my doumbek (a middle eastern drum) and has a very unique way of rolling her shoulders around when she dances. In general, she seems very physically oriented. She loves jumping up and down (she just learned the words "up and down") and also just figured out how to jump up in the air, which apparently is a two year old skill. She likes to jump off the bottom step of the stairs, climb up the narrow ledge along the grass in the front yard, and walk down stairs by herself without holding anybody's hand. (She'll say "no" if you offer to help). I think that's pretty impressive for a 19-month-old. She also loves being swung around by her arms. She'll always ask for more, saying "'gain? 'gain? 'gain?"
She's pretty cheerful most of the time (unless she gets really tired) and gets over disappointments and upsets pretty easily, if you distract her. She's definitely sociable, and isn't usually very clingy except around strange men. Once she warms up to them, though, she starts flirting like crazy.
If she continues on this current trajectory, she will be a beautiful, flirtatious, independent mechanical engineer who loves rock climbing, dancing, and collecting fashionable footwear.
In the past month her obsessions have been plastic buckles (like the kind you find on luggage or backpacks), keys, jumping, and shoes. For a few days she spent huge amounts of time trying to fit buckles together and then demanding that they be opened again ("Open? Open? Open?"). Now she has pretty much mastered that skill and is trying to figure out what she can open with my keys. I set up a chair next to the front door so she can practice putting the key in the lock, but she's also happy trying to open the cat's red plastic travel-carrier or, sometimes, the cat himself. She also enjoys trying to fit my keys down the heating grates. Often she will abscond with Jeff's keys and pretty soon you'll hear the car alarm going off because she's pressed the panic button. Oh, the joy of hearing that beep-beep-beep!
And that shoe thing. This kid has a lot of shoes, mostly because she got a bunch of hand-me-downs that are her current size, and her mama discovered that Marshall's is a great place to find baby shoes. Melina just learned the word for "boot" and has figured out how to get her boots on by herself. She gets annoyed and says "no" if you try to help her with this process.
So far, she doesn't seem too interested in creating art (unless you count music and dance). She would rather chew on crayons or take pens apart and put them back together. She's amazingly good at taking off and replacing pen lids. Yesterday we spent half an hour trying out every pen in our pen jar, but she was more interested in figuring out how they worked than actually drawing anything with them.
She does love music, and she has always been into dance. She likes drumming on my doumbek (a middle eastern drum) and has a very unique way of rolling her shoulders around when she dances. In general, she seems very physically oriented. She loves jumping up and down (she just learned the words "up and down") and also just figured out how to jump up in the air, which apparently is a two year old skill. She likes to jump off the bottom step of the stairs, climb up the narrow ledge along the grass in the front yard, and walk down stairs by herself without holding anybody's hand. (She'll say "no" if you offer to help). I think that's pretty impressive for a 19-month-old. She also loves being swung around by her arms. She'll always ask for more, saying "'gain? 'gain? 'gain?"
She's pretty cheerful most of the time (unless she gets really tired) and gets over disappointments and upsets pretty easily, if you distract her. She's definitely sociable, and isn't usually very clingy except around strange men. Once she warms up to them, though, she starts flirting like crazy.
If she continues on this current trajectory, she will be a beautiful, flirtatious, independent mechanical engineer who loves rock climbing, dancing, and collecting fashionable footwear.
Garage Update
Here's a recent view of our "garage," which Jeff has really started working on now that it's freezing and pouring rain all the time. He thinks it's better to spend the weekend cold and miserable than to waste a beautiful summer day on manual labor. (This picture was taken during one of the last sunny days of October). Actually he HAS made some progress on it lately. He is done digging (and refilling) the foundation and has laid out the wood and rebar that will be needed in order to pour the concrete. The next step is to add some "forms" (more wooden things) and have it inspected before the concrete truck comes. Note the fully grown vegetation on the pile of dirt.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Polio vaccination
Let it be noted for the record that Melina got her polio vaccination today and didn't cry at all. What a brave girl!
Who's this Tim you keep talking about?
For some reason every time Melina wants a snack (especially one that's not very good for her) she says "Tim? Tim? Tim? Tim?" It's very strange. I've asked Youngsoon if it's some Korean word, and apparently it's not. I have no idea where it came from.
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