Joy Pockets # 7

There's been much to be grateful for/happy about this week. To honor it I am going to offer you a few glimpses of our daily life last week.
Like any other morning, M puts the laundry away.

 

Is this the same fruit? -Matching real lemons and apples to the photographed ones.

 

Practical life and nutritive activities: forking tomato bits.

 

Reading a magazine while on the potty...and brushing brand-new teeth!

I hope you like it! What are you up to?

Language acquisition

I am having a hard time keeping the pace with you in terms of language acquisition.

It is known that toddlers have a much wider understanding of language than they actually put into practice. I can't add words to the list of words you indeed voice fast enough, let alone the ones you understand without saying them. You understand words in two languages and don't seem to get confused. This is of course an adult's statement. An adult who has been teaching languages to other adults for too long... Hence my surprise. 
We are in awe with the fact that for your language seems to be a much more malleable thing than we usually think. This explains why when you started using the words "mama" and "papa", you would call "mama" or "papa" any face you'd see. Those seemed to be the words for people. Later on, when you learned "nena" (girl), you would call "nena" any thing with a face. Now, you seem to distinguish between "nena", used for kids or young women, and "yaya" (granma) used for other people.
Your pronunciation covers more phonemes than ours. You have both vowel and consonant sounds that seem to be somewhere in-between the ones we use. Thus the difference between "pa" and "pah", or "ta" and "tah". It is amazing to see your face light up every time you see our cat (or any cat, drawn, painted, or photographed) and say confidently: "pah".
What amazes me the most is the fact that whereas some concepts you name keep changing, there's always an inherent logic and I sometimes fear that this logic might escape my understanding.
It is a fact that you manage to mix Catalan and English in a way that highlights the similarities between the two languages. "Nose" for instance ("nas" in Catalan) is "na"; "cat" (gat in Catalan) is "pah".
My/your journal's lasts entries recording words you use date back to the 23rd of January and the 3rd of March, with 10 and 19 words, respectively. Today I might add at least 8 more.
I would now like to note down the words you've showed to know up to now. Just in case I forget.
To you, reader, feel free to skip the next section, since it might not be of your interest.
Words you had been using up to January, 23rd, 2012:

Mama

Papa

Ababa (water/aigua)

 ná (nose/nas)

nena (girl-kid-woman?)

pah (cat/gat)

ta (socks)

baba (banana)

Teddy (this is M's lovey)

nana (breast)

New words added on March, 3rd:

tah (jacket)

má (mouth)

pa (pa/bread)

uauau (dog/gos)

té (té/here you are)

mé (més/more)

mam (nyam/yummy)

tata (caca/poop)

apapa (apple)

yaya (granma and other people)

Words I've heard you voice more than a handful times as of now, March, 12th:

ptata (patata/potatoe)

shu (shoe)

tae (toes)

brbere (mandarina)

ai (eye)

peda (pera/pearl)

shi (si)
ha (hat)

There are a couple of anecdotes I would like to share. We usually listen to some old tapes every morning and do some dancing. I would have said the music was just a background but there you also took me by surprise. Some weeks ago, while chanting with The Beatles "and in her eyes, you see nothing", you pointed out to me: "eyes!". Days later it was old Bob Dylan singing out of tune "Mama’s in the fact’ry. She ain’t got no shoes". There you grinning widely and pointing to your brand-new shoes!

What about your babies/toddlers? I would love to hear what they are babbling!

Before Spring settles in

In my mind I have been wanting to write and post about so many things lately that thinking I had actually done something I have almost completely forgotten to mention what was going on around here. Preparing to welcome the spring I set up a new environment last night and realized I hadn't shared our last activities, not even the ones we had before those. I apologize for this lack of consistency.
We tried stickers again, using a black-and-white painting by J. Miró as the background, and this was the outcome:

I know it is too early for abstract concepts such as colors but since we are always seeing basic colors everywhere I decided to set up some color shelves for a couple of weeks. You can see the blue and red ones -yellow came later-. M didn't show much interest in them, only took some items to explore. And although I guess the blocks are likely to be used in the future, up to know they have been utterly ignored. Finally, I got to make a triangle, yellow block!














One of the boxes we have had around these pasts weeks contains toiletries; a tiny hand mirror, a hair brush, necklaces, and bracelets. Together with the clothes baskets, it has been a hit. There you can see M trying on some jewels, and checking their top quality with the help of the mirror:-)

We've been also doing some activities outside, playing with sand -oh, yeah, we finally set up a sandy area-, water, using the blackboards... The water involved a bit more of a mess, so I didn't take any pictures... sorry! I will next time.

 M is currently 14 months old and she has started to stand on her own and cruise taking one or two steps. It is so exciting and the nicest thing is that she shows excitement when she realizes she is there all by herself. Before she decided to give cruising a try though, she tried to climb the stairs step by step on  her legs... This is something that has indeed surprised me, she could crawl up this flight of iron stairs before crawling on the floor and started standing up on each step before standing on the floor! Isn't that amazing?

Hey world, here I come!!

Of socks and smiles

Up to now there were many times when you would do something and I would be amazed at what a clever action you were doing but I felt I couldn't say it aloud or I would be teased for how a proud, silly mother I was. I remember once when you were around 7,5 months I saw you removing the inside circle of a foam letter from a playing mat and then trying to put it in place again. It was way too early for even knobbed puzzles and I was taken aback by the action but didn't say anything, just in case you had done that randomly.
Today it was clear as day that your actions were not the fruit of random. We had just gotten up and I was barefoot, having just dumped yesterday's soiled socks into the laundry basket. You were playing in the bathroom while I was getting dressed and then you've come to me with my pink socks -rescued from the pile of soiled clothes- and with a wide grin you have offered me the socks saying -tah (your own word for "socks"-. It was so obvious that you were helping me get dressed that I haven't been able to deny your offer and with an even broader smile than yours I have put the dirty socks on again. (Don't you worry, I have changed them the next time you weren't looking:-)

Stickers

Stickers have really surprised me. I really didn't think they would be such a hit. First, I set up a sticky contact paper activity (I had seen in Peaceful Parenting) some weeks ago and, to my delight, it caught M's attention and turned out quite nice. Here you can see her sticking some images I cut out and how the "work of art" is displayed on our kitchen's wall.

 

Since it was quite a nice activity and M focused on the stickers with a delightful concentration, I decided to suggest other similar activities. I found a sticky strip of Mickey Mouse my sister bought to decorate her daughters' room ages ago (the youngest is 16 already!). I had kept it without a purpose, as many other things I keep along the way, and it has finally ended up being useful. I cut out 4 faces, gave M a white cardboard, and passed the faces to her without further ado. She was free to stick them to the rug, play with them for she loves toying with Scotch tape, or whatever. She decided to stick them to the paper her own way, as you will see. 

There are four different faces of Mickey -smiling, winking, grumpy, and laughing) so I think we will use it in the future for learning moods. 

We worked similarly with these stickers of children.

 And, not a stickers activity but similar, we gave a winter paper puzzle my sister brought to me from her school a go. She is a public kindergarten teacher and she gives me materials from time to time.  We don't use them as they are intended to but they are nice and useful all the same.
Here is M toying with the pieces of the puzzle. She loved to point at the children and see "nena, nena", the word she uses for most things with eyes-nose-mouth. We also took the opportunity to set up a related shelf with winter story books and images.

 

The puzzle assembled. This, of course, was my doing.

This are easy-to-do, neat activities to do with young toddlers. I will like to hear other alike activities you do with your little ones!

Joy pockets # 4

I am late this week, but it is still Friday in Alaska, right? I was sick last night and couldn't make it to post joy pockets. This week has been a busy one.

Essential support from a husband without whom I would have had a bad time this week.
Another morning spent with the wonderful toddlers of the shared rearing group.
Interesting conversation about Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men" at the Rubí Book Club.
M concentrating on suggested activities for long stretches of time.
First late winter sunny days.
The early bloom of beautiful almond trees.
M's first steps on her own.

I'd love to hear about your week!