In la la land

Lexi’s favorite word these days is “la la,” which is Kiswahili for “sleep” (although I’ve also heard Desmond Tutu use it to describe himself going into retirement). I’d say it’s a concept bordering on obsession with her these days, but perhaps her grandparents (Sarah’s parents) had something to do with it when they visited Nairobi recently. She taught them the word when they were here, and perhaps that’s why she has taken great delight in it. It could also be that when Jane has trouble getting Lexi to fall asleep for her nap, she sings a little la-la-by that is just the words “la la, Lexi, la la” repeated over and over.

She is very good at identifying la la and people engaged in it (or supposedly doing it). However, strangely, she says it sometimes as soon as we go into her room in the morning (after she’s been la la all night). But at church the other day, a man a few rows back had his eyes closed while we were singing a hymn (clearly we weren’t at our usual Lutheran church). Although he was standing at the time as well, Lexi identified it with a “la la.” We were out somewhere recently, and Lexi saw a poster with a bunch of people on it. One of the people was lying horizontal, to which she declared, “La la.”

She also shows a tender, caring side when people really are appearing to sleep. A couple of weeks ago when I was ill with my mild case of typhoid, the afternoon I was feeling the worst, I had camped out on the living room couch under a blanket and in front of the TV. Lexi approached me several times, not quite sure what I was doing. But once or twice she patted me gently on the shoulder and said, “La la.”

Diagnosis: Good Kiswahili speaker

Lexi had her 18-month check-up at the pediatrician’s office yesterday afternoon. Perhaps the most telling thing I heard during the visit about her development wasn’t from the doctor himself, but from the receptionist. As she called us in to the doctor’s office, she asked me, “Where did she learn all that Kiswahili?” I told her that Jane, our nanny/house help taught her and that we had instructed Jane to speak only Kiswahili to Lexi. The receptionist said that she is speaking very well. She had heard Lexi speaking to me while we were playing with the toys in the waiting room. I replied that Sarah and I don’t know what Kiswahili words Lexi is saying, much less when she’s actually speaking it because we know so little of it (anything other than the several English words she speaks to us is just gibberish). The receptionist just laughed but seemed delighted and amused that such a little girl was progressing so well on her African language skills. Lexi seems to be doing better at 18 months than we were in our early 30s in learning French while living in a non-English-speaking country.

Health-wise, Lexi is doing well. She got two more immunizations yesterday and cried for each of them and then was shy with the cashier, as if she was angry at me for allowing someone to poke her with needles (OK, as someone who hates needles himself, I can understand if she was angry). Her vitals:

Height: 81.5 cm (32 in.)
Weight: 10.3 kg (22.7 lb)

She has shot up in height a few centimeters since her last doctor visit six months ago. Will she be a tall girl? Looking at her growth over time, for her weight, she has been at or slightly below the 50th percentile (although she’s just above the 25th percentile at 18 months, so she’s now skinny for her height) and, for her height, at or above the 50th percentile. So much for being an above-average Lake Wobegone child.

Taking after Sarah?

Lexi has really taken to the word book. It’s one of a handful of words that she really knows the meaning of. She knows where in her room the bedtime reading books are (behind a door in one of the built-in closets), and she gets excited at the mention of the word as we change her diaper and get her into her pajamas. She will hopefully take after Mommy and be a good reader, enjoying it as a relaxing pastime (unlike Daddy, who reads some, but it tends to be newspapers, magazines and online news).

Last night, I read Lexi a book at bedtime about a cat and dog that fight and cause chaos in the house and yard while their little girl owner tries to maintain order. It’s a book Lexi really enjoys because it has two animals that she knows the sounds of. She can see a dog and say “woof, woof” and see a cat and say “meow.” So she has fun following along in this book as it’s read to her. This morning, as we were changing her diaper, she insisted on a “book,” and so we gave her that one. She proceeded to “read” it with the “woof, woof” and “meow” sounds while adding plenty of other noises as “words” in between. It was so cute. She seemed to enjoy the book even more reading it herself.

Discovering a world of words, birds and babies

Several months ago, when Lexi was younger and wasn't saying actual words, she made "friends" with a group of large black birds with long, curved beaks that lived high in some trees on the edge of the compound where we live. Because she spent a lot of time outside with Jane passing the hours each day, she used to see these birds flying overhead and making a loud and distinctive "caw" like a crow. Lexi soon learned to "speak" to them by imitating their call.

Lexi has grown and moved to higher pursuits like walking and talking, and fortunately her bird friends have grown along with her. One set of these birds, a family, has for some reason taken up residence in our small back yard and recently hatched a baby bird behind some of the bushes lining the grass. It cannot fly yet, so it spends time walking around our yard, much to the delight of Lexi. The mother visits it regularly to feed it. She still "caws" at the birds occasionally when she hears their relatives flying overhead and calling out. But more importantly, the new bird has given her a chance to practice some of her most favorite words: "bird" and "baby." Indeed, we point out to her, the new small bird is both a bird and a baby.

"Baby" is one of Lexi's most-used words. With it and others, she's starting to figure out that words can express things and have meaning. Wherever she is, or whatever she sees, such as a magazine of Dad's, she is trying to identify the baby. She sees children walking along the street when we're out in the car and will point and say "baby." Yesterday, we received several photo Christmas cards from friends that have pictures of the parents and children - several chances to identify the "baby" in each (even if the children are beyond that stage). To experiment, I held up the back cover of a magazine showing an elderly person and waited several seconds. "Baby," Lexi said after some thought. So she's still working on her accuracy, but maybe she deserves some leeway in this case because, to her credit, she didn't know the term "elderly man" or "senior citizen" but was probably trying to think of it in those few seconds. For her, all people will just have to be "baby" for now.

Another word that she knows and uses with much greater accuracy (and an impressive amount of it, given her age, I believe) is "pretty." She's much more discriminating with this word because I thinks she has really nailed its meaning. Often when she sees a flower-print piece of clothing, she'll point and say the word. I can't even prompt her to say it by pointing out things that I think (or that she should think) are pretty. Good that she's thinking on her own now and isn't swayed by our suggestions one bit.

Other recently acquired words and terms since the last report on this topic:

* all gone
* "up above" [the world so high], the phrase from "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," taught to her over the holidays by Stephen's mother when his parents were visiting us; she probably picked this up quickly because it has a word that she already knew: "up"
* book: This one gets her excited for her bedtime story
* "monk" (monkey)
* woof, woof: Sometimes used for dog
* Freddy: Her "baby" friend at No. 7 in our compound
* up: doubles for "open"
* cow: We haven't quite figured out what she's calling a cow or what she means by it, since she says it a lot.

One Smart Cookie!

I am sure all kids as they go through this amazing stage of learning about the world around them are smart...but we can't get over how clever Lexi can be. She now seems to singing several words in 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"; she said her first real sentence that I have heard 'It's there.' (in reference to where her milk was); she know how to get her way - and smirks when you give in to her.

She stepped down into the lanie without holding onto anything and she can get her self into and out of her strollers - and on and off our bed. She brushes her teeth by herself. As she won't let us help her any more, I am just hoping she is doing a good job. She knows to lift her foot up when you want to take off her pants while she is standing up.

Lexi is definitely becoming more indepent - lots of 'no' saying and shaking of her head. How will she rebel next? :)

Getting Clingy?

Lexi seems to be going through a clingy stage. More and more these days, it is only Mom that she wants to be held by. And yesterday, I took all the adults out in the car and Lexi started crying. She usually doesn't do that.

Her grandparents are having a lot of fun with her which is not surprising as we have a lot of fun with her as well. She is so interactive and expressive. She does this thing with Stephen where they both squeeze their hands in the air and wave them about making high pitched noises at the same time. That's part of her 'I'm excited' routine.

She is down to one longer nap a day which sometimes isn't long enough it seems as she will be crabby in the evening. So she is getting put to bed early a lot. She still sleeps in the morning until the usual time.

New words learned, new connections made

Suddenly, as I wrote in the last entry here, it seems that Lexi is picking up new words, and she is continuing to do it at a rapid pace. Plus, in the past few days, she has seemed to make the connection in her head that words can be used to identify things and get things that she wants. Her new favorite words:

• up (on the list last time, but still popular, especially now that she can use it to ask to be lifted anywhere)
• "mahk" (milk): This morning Jane came to ask me if Lexi had drunk her milk at breakfast because at mid-morning, Lexi seemed to be asking for more milk. I told Jane that Lexi had gotten her usual fill at breakfast and was just practicing a new favorite word.
• "lahk" (light): This word goes with a favorite activity - turning lights in rooms on and off. Now she's having fun identifying all sorts of lights all over the place - the lights at the grocery store, a flashlight, the moon (which we saw on Friday night, full and unusually large), etc.
• uh-oh: self-explanatory