super genius

not only does sparrow point at the splatters on her art-drip blanket and say "art" in an english accent ("aaht"), today she said her own name for the first time!!

she recognized herself in a picture.

one of her favorite activities is to go through my phone pictures and look at all the ones i have of her and daddy. she says "daddy!" "baby!" there is one of her and liz, and she now knows it's liz and says "sisi!" (auntie sissy). then today she totally blew me out of the water and said, "sisi! aewo!" and i gasped and said "what!? who's that?" again, she said "aewo!" sparrow! woohoo!

she is saying so many new things that i can barely keep up. she is particularly good at copying us when we say something, so i am not quite sure if she gets and knows what she is saying all the time. my favorite thing recently has been her amen. she started doing it a month and a half ago, but now it is soooo funny. you bow your head to pray and she is doing really goofy and cheesy faces the whole time and totally just being funny; you don't think she is paying attention at all, but then the second you say "in jesus' name," she right-on-cue says "amen!" which is promptly followed by "bite?!" like, feed me already!

new hilarities

haha, let me tell you about sparrow's listening skills. she pretends a LOT that she doesn't know what we are saying to her, and yet, we can be praying this long elaborate prayer, and she is listening so well that as soon as we say "in jesus' name," she says, "amen" right on cue! every time! crazy.

sparrow can say one, two, three! in sequence, and when she hears someone say "one," she usually concludes with "wee!" (three) and then starts again, "one...wee!" she thinks this is great fun because it usually comes with getting daddy to jump around or toss her around or lift her up to fly. she also walks around humming "A B D, A B D," which is of course abc, slightly mispronounced.

today i took her to farmer's market as usual, and we have been eating a lot of berries lately. well she was already stained red all over by the time i put her in the car; i wanted her to eat something a little lighter in color for the ride home, and she always wants to eat in the car. anyway, i decided on a yellow plum-thing and started biting bits off to hand back to her. she ate one piece, but mistrustingly, and when i tried to give her another piece she said loudly, "no! ...beiiyy!" (berry) wow. making her feelings quite clear. oh well. more plum for me! she will stick with the strawberries, thank you!

one of the coolest things she's learned in the past week or two is to take her dirty diaper once we are done changing her, and put it in the bucket in the bathroom. it is such a nice thing. and she has never even tried to throw it into the adjoining toilet either! at this rate, she really will be fully earning her place in the household by the time she is seven!

another one of her recently acquired skills is walking backward. she has been working on this for a few weeks (something thomas taught her), but has just recently gotten pretty good at it. she gets this little taut smile on her face and mischevious eyes, and starts taking little marching steps-in-place while saying "back back back back..." and moves backward, usually landing with her butt on her mattress and then bouncing up and down for a few moments with her short little wispy hair flying upward. it was really funny when she was first learning the backward thing because when she would get under pressure, like when we would ask her to demonstrate it for us, she would get too excited and end up always going forward with her little marching steps, instead of back.

the other day thomas and sparrow found a discarded kiddie-doll stroller on one of their walks. sparrow loved it sooooo much that thomas at last acquiesced and brought it home. he cleaned it up, and now she plays with it all the time, pushing it around and sitting in it and playing with the little buckle. the evening after she first got it, i had set her stuffed piggy that liz gave her into the stroller and we buckled him in. then i asked her, "are you going to take piggy for a walk around the block?" immediately she pushed piggy away and...straight to her box of blocks! i was baffled by her confidence and sincerity at which she followed my suggestion! not only that, but she picked out all the colored blocks from the stash and put them in piggy's lap. so nice!

on wednesday we went sailing with dave and danielle. i was BUSHED from the drammamine i had taken, and completely nauseous the whole time on top of it! would i have been less sick-feeling, or more, if i hadn't taken the medicine? sparrow LOVED it. she kept pointing and saying "wa-du! wa-du!" and wanting to stand right on the edge of the boat looking over. luckily we had borrowed a kid life jacket from the reeves and had stuffed her into it the minute we got on the boat. about halfway through the fun, she got so tired that she fell asleep on me, and of course, slept like a baby until we got back to land. she has experienced so much already, in her short little life! my first time sailing--almost 26 years old. her first time sailing--not yet 16 months. she's been to at least ten weddings already, too, and four countries.

HAAAAHAAHaaaa, do i have a treasure of a video to share with you today! thomas taught sparrow the greatest move ever! i laughed my head off at the dinner table.
i hope this link works.

sparrow's new words

i have to keep a list of the new ones she acquires, at least for awhile, because it is fascinating to me.

july 9th--

rock (she said it walking all the way back home from brandon school, and insisted on touching every rock in a little stone wall and saying "ock" as she pointed to each one.)

july 10--

truck

weekend of july 13-16

amen (she interrupted our prayer by saying "amen!")
kick
bike
light
tree
bite! (every time she sees us eating something she wants)
bible
hand

july 17--

boy

july 20--

wet

july 21-28th--

quack
pokey
cup
drink
bounce
food
book (not just the sign but the real word now!)

july 29th--

key
berry
wipe

july 30th--

tea
avocado (abcoco)
train
elmo
cookie (kickee!)

july 31st--

yucky

aug. 2nd--

blankie
pinecone
coffee
buggy
one
chicken

aug. 3rd--

hug (she started saying this awhile ago, actually, don't remember exactly)
bath
bowl
cracker
dog (for real--not just panting or barking or "du". she says "dogk"
chair
glasses (started awhile ago too.)

aug 5th--

wind
(this was completely amazing because she was just sitting eating lunch and she kept staring out the window at the tree waving vigorously outside. suddenly she pointed out and looked at me and said, "wind!" her dad teaches her well.)

she also now walks backwards in tiny little steps with this pleased, excited, mischevious look on her face, saying "back back back back" as she does so. haha!

it seems like she ditches the signs for things as soon as she has the word down. kind of a sad loss, but her talking is so cute that it's worth it!

aug. 6th thru 19th--

pen
sand
gate
swing
slide
skunk
cheese
hot dog
cereal
bucket
bathroom
towel
shoes
toes
hair
head
blanket
read
help
hard
puppy
bee
duck (full-fledged!)
on
go
out
bird
airplane (using 2 syllables now and is understandable as such)
train (she hears a train hooting in the distance and perks up and says "wain!")
spanking (beng-keng)
hole
muffin
butterfly (she has this elaborate sign for it and says "vwy!")
three

aug. 20th--

bread
toast
car
bottom
outside

she also said "rice" and "bus" today, but i don't know if i should officially include them, because she was copying us, and i don't know if she really knows what these words mean by themselves. all the other words i have up, she could say without prompting when she saw the object or action in question.

aug. 20th to sept. 19th--

sweater
hungry (she refers to the fridge as "ungy!")
bear (real word)
grape
shoe
necklace (real word)
potty
knee
dip
guitar
drum
turtle
yogurt
bag
rain
cow (real word)
toy
ring
paper
art
outside
leaf
walk
pancake
monkey
juice
milk
snake
booty
spider
buggy
wagon
foot
piggy (real word)
fishy (real word)
raccoon
bunny (real word)
spider
peekaboo (bookeego!)
star
two
abc
flower (r.w.)
gentle (r.w.)
bee (r.w.)
frog (r.w.)
sleeping
dinner
read
page
house
neck
dress
animal (aminau)
vegetable (sounds like "butterball!")

sparrow's words

i want to start keeping a record of words sparrow adds to her vocabulary. i should have been doing this all along. what counts as a baby's first word anyhow? their first correctly-pronounced word, or their first recognizable attempt at a word? her first recognizable attempt at a word came at seven months, shortly after she had learned to crawl, i believe, which happened just before she turned 7 mos. i was showing her a rubber ducky, and doing the duckbill sign, hoping she'd catch on to the sign soon, as i knew she loved her duckies. but instead of signing, it, she just started saying "du-du!" one day. i was amazed. i was so amazed that i thought it was just a fluke, but when she kept doing it every time i would bring out the duck and speak and sign it, she would continue saying "du-du!" and to this day she still says it "duh!" words she can now say are:

duck (duh)
dadda
mama
dog (duh)(sign too)
wow
owl (ow-a)
banana (nana)
ball
water
apple
no (sign too)
hi
bunny (nanna) (sign too)
moon (nun)(sign too)
hat (sign too) (she pronounced it "ta" for a long time but how it's "hat")
hot (sign too)
button (don)
balloon (noon)
bye-bye
boo! (bo)
uh-oh
night-night
up
down
poopee (poopa) (sign too)
airplane (nana) (sign too)
octopus (ahpo) (sign too)
bed (ba) (sign too)
baby (bay bay)
ant
egg
clown (doun) (sign too)
sky (gy)

the last 11 or more were just acqquired within the last 2 weeks. she is saying a new one every day now.

and she has sounds or signs for at least 2 dozen other things:
clap
food/eat
nursing
phone
flower
book
sneeze
fishy (fishface)
pig
kitty
gentle
please
bird
horse
peekaboo
i love you
cow
sheep (she goes "heheheh!" for "baaaa" so cute. she sits there and 'laughs' at her book with all the sheep in it)
donkey
comb/brush
necklace
goose
bee/bug
motorcycle
sleep
driving
frog
bear
cold
monkey
lion


of course she can identify a bunch of other things such as: her nose, eyes, hair, ears, mouth, toes, shoes, porridge, sandwich, cereal, blanket, spoon, bath, door, window, etc. and knows pat-a-cake. she can do a bunch of faces on command: her first and most famous was "tigerface," at about 8 or 9 months, then came fishface around 10 months, and roller coaster face (my favorite) around one year. she also nods her head vigorously when we say "yes, mama!" or "rock n roll!" and knows what it is to go upside down and dance and bounce.if i say "pick up the crayon and put it on the blanket," she knows what to do. also "go give this to daddy."

anyways i don't know what they are supposed to be saying/signing at this stage at ALL. no idea. but i do think she is a genius.

mama's sewing corner

i have been using our sewing machine and my precious evening hours of late to sew clothes for the baby... ok, ok, i wasn't really sewing clothes per se. not in the 1950s gingham dress-sewing sense. but a cape can count as clothes, too, right? can i win an industrious housewife award? yes. i was making sparrow a princess cape. it can even be attached to her onesie with snaps to prevent choking accidents. i had noticed a few times that sparrow was wrapping her blankie around her shoulders and traipsing about the house that way, but not only that: my pants, shirts, even my victoria's secret underwear were on different occasions worn by her as a "cape."


so---it was time to make her a cape, of course. i made it a bit too long, and not wide enough as it should have been--she can't really wrap it--so i'll have to make another one. but for now it still looks pretty dang amazing when she runs around trader joes in nothing but her onesie, cape, and huge sandals. sigh. so cute.



also, we had a heeeeelarious potty training incident this morning: sitting on couch in kitchen, sparrow pats her diaper and says "poopa!" i say, "we'd better take her; maybe she has to go pee again...?" (she says poopa for both functions.) thomas says, "you have to go to the toilet?" and we rush her to the bathroom. when we get her diaper off, thomas looks in her diaper and says, "hm, it's already wet, and...look, there's a little bit of poop in it..." well little sparrow is still standing there next to the toilet, and while he's analyzing it, she lets the rest of the poop out onto the floor! hahahaha, thomas was so shocked. so you see, young potty trainers out there, one MUST put the baby on the toilet immediately after removing the diaper! analyzing diaper contents can wait til later. baby bowels can't.

i think the hardest part about potty training is having the energy to consistently run the baby to the toilet every time they give their cue. because sparrow doesn't quite know yet, i think, that she is only supposed to say the cue before she actually needs to go. not just for fun or whenever she thinks about it or when she hears a toilet flushing. so i would seriously be putting her onto the toilet 20 times a day at this point. any advice from the veterans? i haven't read any books, just prayed about it, and it seems to be working alright. we don't even have her own potty for her, so maybe we should get us one of them and that way we can just buy pull-ups and she can take herself to the potty.

you will notice that i am actually quite scientific

here i will share with you how i have organized my summer with a simple formula:

day off work + sunny morning = one hour at the beach

this means we are going two or three times a week nowadays, since the gray days have mercifully been less frequent. today was a GORGEOUS day at bacara; we were able to arrive there by 10 am (i like to go in the mornings before my shower and before the big heat and crowds of the day). it was seriously perfect: pristine, practically tar-free, amazing smooth round rocks scattered about, the perfect tidal level, the perfect amount of haze in the sky, and the perfect temperature: breezy, yet warm in the sun. and no one else to be seen. it made me sooooooooooo glad that we still live in santa barbara, despite the craziness of rent. i had my travel mug of fresh gourmet coffee with me, which improved my outlook even more. sparrow was great the whole time and played in the sand without insisting on going down to get tumbled in the water. although she does have quite the affinity for tossing sand onto the blanket... we went on a walk down the beach, we picked up some interesting shells, she face-planted in the sand, she laid on top of me as i was getting my vitamin-d intake, she played with dogs running by, she knocked beach rocks together, she tried to pick up boulders, she gave me sweet little kisses under her ladybug hat, she destroyed all the sand towers i made... sparrow is perfectly content when she is outside. once i figured this out, i decided to make my life a whole lot easier and developed the summer formula given above.

it also helped that i became free of sunscreen: yes, i don't believe in it anymore, and it has sure made it a lot easier and funner (and better-smelling) to go down to the beach. it is crazy enough trying to get everything ready for a baby to hit the sands without having to add to it the sunscreen burden. she's become quite the little brownie, but i am telling you: we have been to the beach for an hour each at least 4 or 5 times without sunscreen now, and she has NOT gotten a sunburn. she must have really good nutrition to build up that natural internal sunscreen mike adams talks about on newstarget.com. i have started taking spirulina and chlorella for this purpose, but i still got sunburned the other day cause the nutrition takes a month to kick in. (side note: i tell thomas we are naming our first set of twin girls spirulina and chlorella. sounds like evil stepsisters.) sparrow on the other hand eats either kale or broccoli every single day, not to mention super porridge and fruits and carrots and most everything organic. i love feeling great about the sun. i love basking in it and tangibly noticing that it's doing my body so much good. that the vitamin d is sinking in to fight cancers and lots of other potential ills. i even had a cold the other week and all i did was drink loads of water and lie in the sun. the throat ache lasted not one day longer after that.

barnaby told me today: "well they say that even one bad sunburn can increase your risk of cancer." right. A) i think pop tarts, croutons, and boxed soups increase your risk of cancer. B) who are "they" and WHY are they not ALSO telling people that using frikn sunscreen increases your risk of cancer too!? HMMMMMM? got a hunch that these "sun causes cancer" studies are being SPONSORED by the sunscreen industry... in my book, the vitamin d obtained from the sun exposure probably more than cancels out the increased cancer risk but no one is going to mention that. more formulas i've come up with to illustrate the dang truth of the matter:

sun expossure = vitamin d
vitamin d = cancer risk plummeting!
sunburn = cancer risk slightly increasing
plummeting + slightly increasing = still remains significantly decreased!
sunscreen use = cancer risk greatly increasing
sunscreen + probably getting sunburned anyways = cancer risk extremely high!

and oh yes, once the twin sisters nutrition boost sets in, it looks like this:

sun exposure + spirulina + chlorella - sunscreen = no sunrelated cancer risk + decreased risks of all kinds of other cancers too, due to vitamin d!

now i have to say something about people who wear spf 8. if you're gonna smear a cancer-causing chemicals on your largest (absorbent!) organ, you might as well use spf 45 and at least take the SLIGHT decrease of cancer risk by avoiding sunburn for sure. they know deep down that they DO want the sun to get to them, but are paying their token homage to the all-powerful sunscreen industry ANYWAYS, sooo.... it takes slightly longer for them to get their desired tan, but they feel good about themselves for at least putting on SOME sunscreen. and in my opinion they are worse than an unbeliever cause they're getting free cancer over here, AND actually PAYING for cancer over there! cancer over here + cancer over there = stupid people. ok maybe just misled, brainwashed, ignorant... as i was once myself. sigh.

i have become so anti-parabens that i even made my own shampoo and conditioner today. so ambitious, yet it left my hair oily and stringy, much like on days when i don't wash my hair at all, but perhaps even oilier and stringier. must have been that oil i put in it. hahaha hehe. i still use "california baby" brand shampoo on sparrow, as i have from the day she was born (johnson's "no tears yet i cause multiple other ills" shampoo has never touched her) but i cannot justify spending $10 for a shampoo bottle for my own use, since with my hair i would use up the lot of it in 2 weeks... i will just have to keep experimenting with food products until i get a good FORMULA which i will subsequently share with the world!

prodigy!

the most amazing thing happened, well really i shouldn't be so surprised, since God is good and cares about these things: i have been praying that we would be able to get sparrow potty-trained in the next 2 weeks, and... then yesterday this happened: she wakes up in the morning and starts playing a little. she looks at us and pats her diaper with her little "huh?" noise which i love so well. i say, "does that mean she wants to go pee? what if it means she wants to go pee? oh well, let's try it!" so i walk her to the toilet, take diaper off, set her on it, and she pees a pee! and her diaper was even completely DRY through the night! so i think she's a veritable genius. nevermind that that's the only time that's happened successfully. she tried to indicate when she was pooping too, but we didn't get to the toilet in time. most of the time, actually, i can tell when she is wanting to poop, and it sort of happens around the same-ish times every day, too. but she has this funny habit of running away when she poops! the other day i came home from work and was so excited to see her, i told her "come to mama and get kisses!" and she was coming toward me, but then she did a 180 and ran into the corner! thomas and i were like, what was that about? but he said, "maybe she's pooping." how did he know? cause sure enough, when she emerged she was very fragrant! but it's apparent that she doesn't like wearing diapers anymore. whenever she is in nothing but a diaper she always pulls on it and tries (sometimes successfully!) to take it off. i have been talking to her a lot about poo and pee and toilets and showing her flushing and telling her every time i am going. confession: i have not been using the decided-upon "turtle" word for her poos. i've just been saying "poopee." it works and it is intuitive and won't make her confused about turtles, which are really a sweet animal.

other things she has been amusing me with lately: she is really dang good at saying "uh-oh!" and "bye bye" now. she started saying bye bye about a week or 2 ago; so cute and so clear. she says uh-oh every time she falls down; or she makes a dramatic crying scene but i usu. don't give her much sympathy. thomas has always reacted to her head-bumping and falling in a dramatic way, a LOT more than me. i keep telling him he should temper his reactions, but he can't help himself! but she learned somehow to react dramatically when she falls! cause i know she really doesn't care a whit, because it usu. doesn't even hurt. when she bumps her head, thomas always shows her what she bumped it on. then he knocks on the item (edge of counter, or whatever it was) and says, "look baby, it's very hard, watch your head! very hard!" as he pats on it firmly to illustrate. she picked that up pretty fast! now whenever she bumps herself on ANYTHING, including his arm or my leg or anything, she will knock on it and make the "huh?" noise to indicate that "this is very hard!" sadly enough, my legs are definitely NOT hard... quite soft, i told her, but maybe someday when we start doing ballet together...

speaking of ballet, we took her to thomas' wed. night ballet that he teaches in goleta, and she was FULLY trying to to tendus and plies, and even working her arms! when she was watching lily's dance recital on video the other week, she was also moving quite accurately to mimic. so perhaps she will want to get into it, even though thomas is super adamant about not pushing her. whenever someone asks him if she's gonna be a dancer, he says, "or maybe she'll want to play soccer!" but for the record, valerie huston (great ballet teacher at ucsb) did herself confirm the beauty of her dance-able feet when she was a mere six weeks old.