What's new: nursing teddies

Halloween came and went and although we had done some related activities, namely pumpkin play dough with cinnamon flavor, small pumpkin boxes recycling egg cartons, and a pumpkin costume, I now realize I took pictures of none of these activities. There is here a tradition called "castanyada", where people gather to eat toasted chestnuts and small cookies called "panallets" and that's what we celebrated in the end. My husband and M made panallets and we invited some friends over for the weekend. The girls were very excited to spend together longer time than is usual.
My dear girl turned 22 months on the 22nd of October and I can tell she has really grown in maturity lately. She is able to express much of her feelings and I think this enables her to feel more at ease and confident about life in general. Not that she is suddenly a bold girl, but she dares to talk to some people and yesterday, for instance, in the supermarket she greeted an unknown boy with a "hello boy" after they had stared at each other for some seconds. And even when she has been shy and silent in a situation, she is able to relate it with humor, as if she had been chatting and taking part of it. This really amazes me.
She has started talking to herself a lot as of late and it is not strange to hear her up and down the house describing what she is doing or what she is going to do, or talking to her teddy. Today I have heard her asking the teddy if he wanted some milk. He must have answered positively because she has proceeded to nurse him and afterwards she has asked him if he wanted to get some sleep. This nursing teddies is something new. Although "we" weaned when she was 17 months, we have never stopped talking about how there will be milk when the baby is born, and she has seen in many instances friends of hers or babies nursing. I love how she incorporates nursing as one more natural aspect of life.
In terms of language, her structures are getting more and more complex and she can now relate quite long sentences with connectors. I find it really funny, though, that despite using "because" apparently well, the sentences she connects often have nothing to do with one another. Another amusing mistake occurs sometimes now that she has incorporated the verb to be in simple sentences as well as in the present continuous/progressive form. Thus, she often says things like "are you cold", to express that she is cold. I love it because while you can see that she is learning to speak really fast, the way she uses language is a very clever imitation of what she hears. It is amazing that children who start talking under the age of 2 or so often invert the personal pronouns. My husband mocks us 'cause some mornings our conversations sound a bit crazy with M saying "good morning Marina" and me answering "good morning mama". It is also incredible how fast she grasps all she hears and this reminds me we have to be extra careful in the way we say things. This evening she was telling me "the baby is kicking me". She must have heard me saying this some time and it has made me think I should speak appropriately all the time. It is not easy, though. Plus our English has so many interferences and, be it as it may, M uses Catalan most of the time. She has picked up the costume of translating and she uses Catalan with everyone around even if the person has addressed her in English. It is as if English were only mum's language...
I haven't mentioned  the baby in my updates but he is growing nice and healthy -I believe- and is due to be born in a month. Having him in mind, I have kept my mother pretty busy as of late... and this is some of what she has made. Apart from a Gobbi mobile I am still trying to assemble. As you see, knitting is one of her crafts -not mine. I am lucky enough to have her to make my designs come true.

Interlocking knitted rings. Thinking ahead of time... just in case we don't have time later on. 

Well... this is a snail for M, who adores snails. My mother had the not so good idea of attaching the knitted snail to a piece of paper. Surprisingly, the paper house has remained nearly intact after much handling.