All posts by kate.

Secretly Japanese

It seems like Ruby must have some Japanese blood in her somewhere. Many of her favorite flavors are Japanese, such as nori (seaweed), sushi rice, and edamame (soy beans); and she loves going out for sushi. So for Christmas, I bought her a pair of chopsticks. They’re kind of like a giant clothespin – attached at one end, with a spring to keep them open.

Tonight, I thought we’d introduce them to Ruby and let her have a try at using them. Our expectations were pretty low, but to my surprise, she mastered it right away! As soon as we figured out that she needed to hold the chopsticks in the middle (instead of at the end), she was able to pick things up, even slippery soy beans and tiny grains of rice.

She proudly shows off her new skill in this video (sorry it’s so dark):

Sentencing

Today I noticed that Ruby is speaking more and more in full sentences. It seems like she made a leap recently from simple verbs and verb/object pairs to completing her sentences with pronouns and articles.

“Couching” and other verbs

Ruby’s language development has really been zipping along this month. Her grammar seems to be better day by day. She understands and uses pronouns and possessives and is starting to experiment with verb tenses.

At first, of course, it was just the infinitive: (to) sit, (to) play, (to) eat. Occasionally she would repeat (and seem to understand) a past tense word we said. Now, though, she’s starting to grasp the present participle (sitting, playing, eating) and is applying it to words on her own. She’s still not clear that there’s a difference between nouns and verbs, so she will often take a noun and add the -ing to describe what she’s doing. She calls putting her feet on something “feeting.” When we were sitting on the couch last night, she said we were “couching”.

I’d say she’s just about at the point where her English is surpassing my (left over from high school) French. Like her, I understand way more French than I can speak. I too have a decently large vocabulary of French words and understand pronouns, but get tripped up constantly when it comes to conjugating.  So I sympathize with her.

The week ahead

Ruby has started to ask about the timing of things we do regularly, such as going to the play center or her grandparents’ house. I tell her “we’ll go to the library in three days,” but I’m not sure how well she understands this. She’s obviously interested in the concept, though, so I came up with a way to communicate it more clearly.

week-board.jpg

I took a big whiteboard and drew seven columns on it. I put the name of each day at the top of each column, and added a marker for TODAY. Then, I printed out a ton of pictures and labels for things we do regularly, laminated them, and taped them onto the days in chronological order (breakfast first, bedtime last, etc.). Ruby can easily see which days Steve is at work, how many days until we go to Ultimate Frisbee, or who is coming over today after naptime.

She has been fascinated by the board so far, probably because all the pictures are of familiar things. I’m working on another set of pictures for things/people we don’t see every week but who I can add in when a visit is planned. Tomorrow, we’re going to see salmon at Carkeek Park, so I cut out a salmon picture and taped it on. I can even just draw something in with a dry erase marker if it’s a one-time event.

It’s a work in progress, and I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it up. But for now, I feel like Ruby is learning a lot about the concept of time.

New things I noticed today

I was watching Ruby play at the play center today and noticed two new skills:

1. She can make the cars go forward (Fred Flintstone style) as well as backward.

2. She has started using pronouns, and correctly too. I heard her say “I found it” about a toy and wondered how long she’s understood the concept.

Quality toy: Grocery cart from Costco

I spotted a kid’s grocery cart recently at Costco and snapped it up. It is unusually well-made, with all the main parts made out of metal rather than plastic. It has a collapsible seat, just like a real shopping cart, and high-quality wheels with ball bearings. And, to make it even cooler, it came with 30 miniature food items, including cans, boxes, and bottles with realistic-looking labels (without any real-life brand names, which I appreciate). It was a steal at $28.

Ruby spent the evening playing with her new pretend grocery store, taking items off the shelf, putting them in the cart, taking them out, putting them in the shopping bag, etc. All of her stuffed animals got a turn to ride in the seat of the cart.

If you want to try to find this cart at Costco (and I highly recommend it), look in the seasonal section by the Christmas toys.

  • Categorized in gear

State of the Toddler

  • Ruby really likes the new M.I.A. album, Kala. We listen to it in the car, and she asks for several of the songs by a word or sound in the song. In fact, she usually insists we play that CD instead of anything else.
  • She also has a CD player in the playroom on a shelf she can reach. She has four CDs that she is able to take in and out, and can press play. (She hasn’t yet figured out how to skip tracks.) While she has a copy of Kala there, she often chooses something else.
  • She now knows hundreds and hundreds of words, and often puts them together in two- or three-word combinations. It’s still pretty rudimentary grammar, but she can get her point across. I can have conversations with her in past, present, and future tenses.
  • As she moves more and more into the verbal realm, she’s dropping her sign language. I haven’t really seen her sign in a while. Occasionally she’ll sign “please” (for extra emphasis) or “pooping” (because she finds the sign amusing).
  • I have to repeat back almost every word she says (so she knows I heard correctly). If I don’t do this, she’ll repeat the word over and over until I acknowledge it.
  • She is learning discipline. Prohibitions that have been in place a long time (such as not touching computers) are very solid, and she usually says “No touch” when near one to remind herself, and remind us that she remembers. Newer prohibitions take some reinforcement. These days we are trying to reinforce the idea that she must listen and obey when we tell her to do something (like put away her shoes, or come here). Once in a while she decides to rebel, gets a funny defiant downcast look on her face, and ignores the instruction. Then, she gets a time out. She’s surprisingly good at taking a time out – it doesn’t upset her, and she sits quietly waiting for the timer to beep.
  • Current favorite foods include: edamame, ketchup, bread, crackers, bananas, nori, cheese.
  • Current favorite toys: her play kitchen (and related utensils), books, CDs.
  • Her memory sometimes astounds me. For example, one Friday we went to a local community center’s play gym and I mentioned in passing that it is the same place where I play racquetball. Then, four days later when I was leaving for racquetball, she said “play gym!”.
  • On the other hand, she has trouble keeping her colors straight, even with much repetition. I’ll ask her what color something is, and there’s maybe a 25% chance she’ll get it right. She’ll always guess a color name (rather than another word), but is still working on which is which.
  • She has one nap a day, which goes from about 2-4pm (give or take). Not all that time is sleeping, but I leave her up there for the full two hours as a quiet time. When she wakes up, she hangs out in her crib, reading a book and talking to herself.
  • She is a slow eater! More accurately, she starts out eating at a good pace, but slows down as she gets more full. She insists that she is not done for a while, and nibbles slowly.
  • She has not yet had a temper tantrum (knock on wood).
  • When we go out, I usually don’t bring a carrier or stroller. She walks around well now, and will go where we direct her while holding someone’s hand. If we are going somewhere like the zoo that requires a lot of walking, I’ll bring either the beco carrier or the umbrella stroller (depending on my mood and the health of my back).
  • When we go to a playground, she enjoys playing in the gravel or sand the best. Extra points if the sandbox has a bucket and shovel. She also likes swings (she requests lots of underdogs) and hanging from bars. She’ll climb up on the equipment but rarely goes down slides anymore. Those riding/rocking toys that are mounted on a giant spring are among her favorites.
  • We still haven’t figured out what is causing the rash on her cheeks. By eliminating it for a week, we ruled out dairy as the cause. Other ideas are fruit or wheat, but we haven’t taken the time to try eliminating those.
  • She really likes animals, especially cats and kittens. When we go to the zoo, she requests some animals by name: gorillas, elephants, lizard, monkeys, penguins.
  • Categorized in life