A preview of Christmas: A visit from St. Nicholas

Today is St. Nicholas Day. Before she went to bed last night, we told Lexi to leave her shoes out near the door to see if St. Nicholas would leave her anything when he came in the night.

Sure enough, he came and left her some chocolate in the shape of himself! Lexi discovered it this morning and saw it in her shoe and was delighted. She knew it was a treat for her, and you could see the delight on her face. We were actually a bit surprised that she got the concept of receiving a gift! What fun we will have on Christmas!

Hillary, baby!

A little while ago, my mother found somewhere and sent to Lexi this onesie with Hillary Clinton's face on it. Presumably it was a leftover from the campaign, so presumably it was also sold at a deep discount.

However, Lexi can now wear this onesie with pride again now that our Hillary has been nominated as America's top diplomat. Daddy is pleased about this appointment (although part of him will always be disappointed that Hillary did not get the nomination to run for president and will probably never be president) and hopes to even work under Secretary Clinton some day in the Foreign Service.

It's Hillary at State, baby!

Temper Tantrums and Other Scrapes

When Lexi is upset/mad and is down on the floor wailing away, she bangs her head on the floor. How do I teach her that it is ok to to mad and to scream, but that she shouldn't be hurting herself? My mom reports that my grandmother said that when my dad was young, he would go in the bathroom and bang his head on the bathtub. Is this someone hereditary?

Lexi's knees were finally healing from scraping them on the driveway when she fell down and rescrapped the left one. Jane reported this to me and said something like 'she's scrapped her knee again - they will never heal." I replied, that yes, Lexi might have scrapes on her knees until she is 18! Jane protested that no, she would stop this falling down soon.

As per Jane

Jane tells us things about Lexi - some of which, I don't know always how much to believe. Anyway, today Jane told me (Stephen is away) that when Stephen is home, he usually works upstairs and comes down mid-afternoon for a snack. He wears sandals in the house so you can hear him coming on the paraquet floors. Supposedly when Lexi hears Dad walking downstairs, she has to run into the kitchen and indicates that she wants a snack too - usually, part of Dad's snack. I think she has figured out that Dad eats a lot of nice things - she never hesitates to point that she wants some, too. And then whatever it is just gets shoved in her mouth, no matter how big.

Clapping after Amen

Don't know if it is just the thing of the day, but Lexi clapped after we said
'Amen' after each of the meal time prayers today. Do you think she understands what happens before we eat (or rather, before Mom and Dad eat, she has usually already started)? We shall see if she repeats the feat tomorrow.

Mid-November update on Lexi's developments

Here’s an update on Lexi’s developments. She’s not necessarily learning new things as much as she was earlier, but most of her developments have to do with understanding more what words mean.

• She is understanding instructions (and thus words) from us more. She obeys when we ask her to sit down on the stairs so we can put her shoes on before going out. And she can take something (like vegetable clippings) from Sarah on one side of the kitchen and bring it across the kitchen to the garbage can and deposit it there. The garbage can has a foot-operated lid, and she loves to see it go down after she puts something inside. She’ll usually give the lid a few taps and/or clap at her achievement.
• She has become good at inviting one of us to sit down next to her. She’ll go to one of the stairs in our living room (we have a sunken living room), sit down, and if one of us is near, she’ll raise her arm, which is the signal that she’d like you to come sit next to her. Often she’ll want to flip through a book or magazine with us.
• She’s also good about asking for help when going up the stairs. She loves to climb the stairs. She can hold onto the vertical railing supports (she’s obviously not tall enough yet to reach the railing itself) with one hand and hold one of our hands with the other. We go up to the landing one way, and then she turns, and we switch sides with her, and up goes the arm that’s not holding onto the railing supports for our hand to take it (she doesn’t even look up to make sure you’re still there – she’s just so trusting in expecting that you’ll help her; it’s so cute). She has also become almost adept at climbing and descending the stairs on her own by crawling.
• She is increasing her vocabulary. She can take some action when she hears someone say a certain word. She either waves at someone standing in front her when she hears the word "hello" or else holds her hand to her ear like she's talking on the phone (she knows well that this is what you say on the phone). She also says "hello" herself a lot (and then holds her hand, or something like the TV's remote control, to her ear). She waves good-bye when someone says "kwaheri" (good-bye in KiSwahili). She says something like "up" when she wants you to pick her up. And the other day, we were all, including Jane, riding in the car on the way to her play group. Lexi said something, and Jane responded. I asked Jane what Lexi had said - how Jane knew what Lexi was talking about. Jane said, "She is talking about..." This was a bit of a revelation to me - that Jane and Lexi are apparently communicating more than we knew (although we should have figured this out; they spend so much time together) or that Jane can figure out what Lexi is trying to communicate, even if she doesn't know or can't say the words. Lexi had apparently said something after seeing some children walking on the street (the word for "children" in KiSwahili is "watoto," and Jane said Lexi had said "watoto," although I didn't hear it).
• Lexi has a child-sized plastic chair that she loves to climb into. She doesn't necessarily spend a lot of time sitting in it, and she loves to move it around the house. She's also become good at climbing up onto the adult furniture and grinning broadly as she sits down as if she's achieved something great, which she has!

Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day

Halloween is not really celebrated here in Kenya. Lexi had a Halloween outfit, but it was long sleeved and too warm for that. So instead, she squeezed into last year's Halloween outfit which still fit pretty well. Her grandparents had sent Halloween candy and trick-or-treat bags and so on the day, she, Dad and Jane took the bags down to the Coopers who live in #7 and have 3 kids. Dad had to explain what Halloween was - and that usually you don't go bringing things to other houses but get things. They felt bad that they didn't have anything for Lexi. But Dad convinced them that an apple would be just right. The house help all got treat bags, too.

The next day, we went to the Guy Fawkes celebration at one of the local private schools. In case you don't know who Guy Fawkes is, look up London and his name and find out. Anyway, this was sort of Halloweenish, as some of the kids were dressed in costumes and they told ghost stories. They also had a huge bonfire (that's the Guy Fawkes part) and fireworks. Lexi enjoyed running around on the big lawn and her parents tried to make sure she didn't crash into anyone. She also looked at the bon fire for a while and we did sparklers with her. When it was time for the fireworks, she seemed fascinated by the lights and only slightly scared by the noise. She did cry a little bit, but then would look up again at the lights in the sky.

In other news..
Lexi is getting better at stepping down stairs when you hold her hand and likes to run - which results in more falls and scrapped knees. She babbles up a storm saying a lot of things we can't understand and believes the remote control is a telephone. She holds it to her ear and chatters into it, pausing occassionally as if she expects someone to reply. She also hands the 'phone' to you to talk into. (But give her the real phone - with someone on the other end - and she pushes it away.)