Learning "L"

Anyone who has heard Chaela speak knows that she's pretty good.  She can say /s/ and /r/ and most /th/'s without a problem, but she's had issues with /l/.  Lately, however, I've noticed that she is consciously working on it.  It all started while she was watching "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" and started running around yelling "Yumpy, Yumpy!  La!  Lumpy! Yumpy!  La!  Lumpy!  LUMPY!" (fun times for my upstairs neighbors).

Anyway, she's been doing well, especially with word-initial /l/ (L's at the beginning of the word... yay linguistics jargon!  Use that degree!).  Recently she's even started picking up on the /l/ within words... except for her own name.  This was a conversation we had this evening:

[Conversation starts with Chaela exaggerating the L in a word I can't remember.]
Me: Wow!  You're getting really good at saying your L's!
Chaela: YEAH!
Me: So can you say Chaela?
Chaela: YEAH!  CHAYA!
Me: Ha ha, not quite.  Chay-LUH.  Llllll.  Luh!
Chaela: CHAYA!  I did it!
Me: Yeah, good job honey.  How about this, say Chay...
Chaela: Chay.
Me: Luh.
Chaela: Luh.
Me: Chay... luh.
Chaela: CHAYA!  I DID IT!  Chaya!  Chaya Kafrin HAIR!
Me: *sigh*
[five minutes later, to herself]
Chaela: Ha ha, Chay-LUH.  That's silly.
Me: *facepalm*

A blog to keep... and show to boys in 13 years.

Alright, a funny story for you all.

Ever since Joci has been drinking from bottles (in December) Chaela has taken to imitating her when we give her something to drink.  She does it every single time.  Observe:

This is the position I'm talking about, only with Chaela and a sippy cup.

 No problem, right?  Right.  Because sippy cups have lids.

Regular cups, however, do not.

So, Chaela and I were hanging out because Will is working tonight and Joci was already in bed.  She asked for a cup of water, so I got her one.  Not a sippy cup, like I usually do, just a normal one.  Chaela's really good with them; she usually has them with meals at the table.  This time she was sitting on the couch.

Now, I don't know if she was extra tired because it was a little past her bedtime, or maybe it was her first honest-to-goodness blonde moment.  I will never know.  What I do know is that within ten seconds of me sitting down at the computer, Chaela screamed.  I jumped up, wondering how on earth she managed to hurt herself that badly laying flat on the couch (never doubting, however, that she could find a way).  She threw herself into a sitting position and gasped, "MOMMY!  I have water ALL OVER ME!"

By this time I was next to her.  Yes, indeed, she was soaked.  I attempted to muffle my laughter as the truth dawned.

"Chaela... sweetheart... um, [snort] did you just try and [giggle] drink that open cup of water laying down?"  I couldn't help it.  I barely made it through the question.  My intelligent, precocious three-and-a-half-year-old had just dumped a cup of water on her face.  Now I had tears streaming out of my eyes.

"Yes," Chaela replied, with a tone and expression I can only call prim.

I lost it.  Ok, it's probably just me, or maybe you had to be here, to hear her scream of shock and horror when it happened.  Or it could be that I'm really, really tired.  Either way, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  Even now, writing this, I can't get over how awesomely hysterical it was.

Thank you Chaela, you made mommy's night.

Joci!

Joci turned one on April 20th this year, making her close to 13 and 1/2 months now.  She's not walking, but she does pull up and cruise, so I'm still holding out hope it will happen eventually.  I've decided one of the things I'm going to do is work on it with her, because part of me wonders if she doesn't walk because I carry her everywhere.  I'm not too worried about it, though the pediatrician did say they might want to look into it if she isn't walking by 15 months, so my goal is to have her on her feet by then.  We'll see.

What Joci does do is communicate.  Her favorite way to do this is an obnoxious scream that sounds like 500 nails on a chalkboard.  However, she also says a few words:

Hi!
Mama
Dad
Uh-oh
Ki (kitty)

She signs for:
All done
I want that (it's the milk sign, which we taught her for bottle, and she decided meant "I want")

She also nods her head yes and no, but I'm not sure if she's quite got the point of it yet.

She might be saying:
Sha! (Chaela)
Buh (Blankie)
Ba (drink, the ba sound coming from "bottle")
Yaya (Love you)

She'll repeat a word if you ask her (not perfectly of course), which I think is pretty cool.

So that's our Joci.  She's such a fun girl!  I a little high maintenance, maybe, but when she smiles, she can light up a whole room.