Bella loves to have places to sit [briefly].
You can count on Annabelle for a smile.
These sisters play so well together.
The doctor laughed when she reached the motor development part of the questionnaire. She'd already seen Annabelle exhibit every physical skill expected, so she didn't need to ask those questions. Annabelle can certainly walk, run, and climb with the best of the toddlers! In fact, when I take her up to Gabi's school for a class party, she holds her own on the preschool playground.
The girls love to be involved in whatever Sister is playing.
Bella's attention span has greatly increased, and she's starting to "read" books.
She'll remember words from the story or tell us what's in the pictures.
Sisters
It can be difficult to keep Bella's hair out of her face.
Recently I noticed that Annabelle's fifth tooth has already grown in. Her top right tooth is a bit askew at this point, so it was growing towards and obscuring the view of the new tooth next to it, which seems to be growing in twisted a bit. The dentist assured me that teeth do grow in at odd angles, and they straighten out as the teeth around them come in and the tongue presses against them.
The big sister
Taking care of Asha
Both girls love dancing to music. Bella will point to Daddy's iPod with a huge smile, show us her dance sign and say, "dee!" Our active toddler really loves the movement involved in dancing. She even made up her own dance sign since we hadn't taught her one. She also picks up on the motions from Gabi's school songs. For instance, whenever Bella says "meow," she does Gabi's dance from the Three Little Kittens.
Bella loves music and dancing.
She presses the buttons on this toy to make it sing so she can dance.
Lola taught Bella a game where they gently knock heads and say "boom."
In the past two months, Bella's vocabulary has blossomed amazingly. At Christmas, she said very few words, although she was extremely effective at communicating with signs and other body language. Now, she can say at least 80 words!
| apple ("bapuh") baa (sheep) baby ball balloon ("boon") banana bath bear bee Bella ("Lella") beluga ("luga") bird blue boo (for peekaboo) book brown brush bubbles bunny bye cat ("ka") chair ("da") chicken ("kick-y") choo-choo circle color ("lolor") cookie | cow cracker ("kack-ky") Dada dance ("dee") diaper ("bapuh") door down duck ear eat eye ("lie") finished ("ninny") fish ("ishh") Gabi ("Gagi"or "Babi") hat hello (for phone) hi hungry ("hung-y") jacket kiss ladybug ("bug-bug" -- very cute) light ("lie") Lily Lola ("Lala") Lolo ("Lalo") me meow | milk ("mii") Mommy moo more mouth ("mau") my night-night no pig pink potty ("pobby") puppy quack shoe ("shh" or "she") slide ("lie") sock ("la" -- I don't know why) spoon ("boon") star stinky ("kiki") strawberry teeth thank you the end uh-oh water yellow yes |
| Plus, Bella still uses her sign language very effectively. | ||
| baby bear bird (also for "brr" and "book") bye cat (also for "cow" and "hat") cow dance (made up her own sign) duck | eat elephant finished fish hat milk monkey | more no (shake head) puppy rabbit sleep where is? yes (nod head) |
Bella can put words and signs together to convey her thoughts. She will also include words in her conversational babbling to create sentences. For instance, last night she clearly told me "I need a diaper" -- the inflections were perfect, even though the pronunciation was more like "ay e ee ah bapuh" (bapuh being her word for diaper). Also, Annabelle is very polite. Whenever I give her something, she always says, "Thank you!" in her adorable toddler voice.
Bella cuddling Mommy
Bella gives wonderful hugs and kisses, although her cuddles are usually brief (unless she's feeling sick). She loves to share pretend food with us, which Gabi loves since hosting play picnics is one of Big Sister's favorite indoor games. Bella is also learning to use a spoon and fork. This new skill often involves handing us the utensil to load with food for her, but sometimes follows the pattern of her picking up the food to place on the spoon and then picking it off the spoon to put in her mouth.
Our family of shoes the day Bella came home with her first tennis shoes
Gabi got a new pair of shoes this weekend which matches Bella's shoes. She's fond of her little sister and likes to match her.
Annabelle does have a tendency to fuss and cry over something little or nothing at all -- she's just bored; she doesn't like being told "no," she's finished drinking her milk, or she dumped out a box of toys (and she just needs you to hand her the first toy before she has fun picking up all the toys and putting them back in the bucket). Bella's cries of "wolf!" get her into trouble sometimes, since I then ignore her (e.g. when I'm in the bathroom; when I'm in the middle of cutting raw chicken), and on a few occasions I have found her stuck because she climbed up on something and can't get down. You'd think she'd learn to stop crying over little things or at least start using her words when she needs help... so far, no. Bella is old enough to sleep through the night, so when she wakes up and fusses, I leave her alone so she'll learn to put herself back to sleep. This morning she never calmed down and I found her sitting in vomit. That makes me feel guilty. Poor baby. But she is still cute.
2 comments:
My goodness, you sure have a cute family!
Bella says "la" for "sock" because "la" is the Chinese word for "pull" and she loves to pull her socks off all the time.
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