Language and Obedience

More on Lexi's language skills and her comprehension of words...

On tv the other night, we saw two people kissing. Someone must have also said 'kiss' because the next day, Lexi pulled Stephen and I together as we all sat on the couch and said 'kiss'. She then did it a couple of times after we had obeyed. And another time when we were standing waiting around for something, she pulls on our legs - pushing us towards each other and saying 'kiss.' Besides commanding us to 'kiss' and 'come', we are also commanded to 'sit' (usually with the word in Swahili), 'lie down' and 'get it' when something has dropped out of her reach.

This afternoon we spent about an hour in the Air and Space Museum. 'Airplane' is a word that Lexi likes and she was very excited to see so many of them. There was lots of arm waving and shouting. In the space section, she saw several devices that had shiny paper - looked like tin foil. This prompted her to say 'chocolate'; it took me a bit to figure out that she thought the shiny paper covered chocolate like the chocolate bar she had seen at home.

Medical update and language challenges

The whole family has had to go the doctor to get medical checkups as LWF requires a medical clearance report at the end of our time abroad. I had a heck of a time getting appointments for all of us in May but I managed. Here are Lexi's stats (I won't give you mine, but Stephen is underweight for his height and his cholesterol is 114. The doctor asked him, "Are you a vegetarian, or do you just eat very well?"):

Weight - 23 lbs, 8 oz
Height - 33.5 inches

She is developing well it seems like. Her latest language challenge is that to get down (to be lifted down), she says 'up-down'. We keep repeating just 'down' but she doesn't seem to get it. Her 'yeses' are quite clear and more frequent now and she will even occasionally say please when prompted.

One of today's better moments

Here is a video of Lexi at one of today's better moments (see Sarah's previous post of the extremes we visited today). I love her term for a rocking chair - "rocky." She can entertain herself on occasion, but only for about 20 or 30 seconds.

Full of energy - and tantrums

Lexi was FULL of energy today - running around, making lots of noise, getting into things. And she was also full of tantrums - lots of screaming and crying for reasons we couldn't understand. She didn't want to eat part of her dinner and complained for about 10 minutes Stephen thought. When she finally tried it, she even said it was 'yummy'. And ate everything on her plate - and asked for seconds twice.

The grandmothers will be happy to know that we did go out and buy Lexi a potty. (It was in the plan, we just hadn't gotten to it yet.) She is not interested in even sitting on it with her clothes on. So we shall see how long this takes!

First Official Haircut

While Stephen and I - and even Aunt Lora (who has been trained in this) - have cut Lexi's hair, last Thursday we actually went to a hair salon to have her hair cut. She was NOT happy about it. She got to sit on a booster seat and wear a gown with fun pictures on it but none of that helped. She practically cried the whole time. I was afraid that she might jerk around and get cut, so I helped keep her still.

The hair cut turned out pretty good and Lexi was happy when it was over.

Sleeping habits and other habits

Lexi has been really Mommy-clingy since we returned to the U.S. Sleeping has been slightly problematic, especially if Mom tries to put her to sleep. But for both her nap and at night, if Stephen puts her to bed, she manages to fall asleep and he can work at the computer in the room where she sleeps or go in and out and it isn't too big of a deal.

Lexi is getting to a stage where she wants to take off her diaper or at least unhook it. This morning, she heard me say 'shower' and the next thing we knew, her diaper was off and she was running around naked (she also knows how to say naked). I was going to take her in the shower with me but I was still working towards that stage so she ran around a bit in the buff. Stephen was working on the computer and not paying attention to Lexi really while I was in the bathroom. She told him that something needed to be cleaned and pointed - but Stephen didn't see anything. I get Lexi in the shower with me and discovered that she had gone poopy in the recent past. I shouted out to Stephen that he had better look around. Yup, there is was over near her bed and he got to clean it up. Oh, the joys of parenthood!

Who wound her up?

We don't know who wound Lexi up tonight for dinner, but she was sure full of energy!