Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

Arianna’s reasonably expressive, is constantly vocalizing, but her actual vocabulary has plateaued for the last few months.

• Mama/mamie, Dada/dadie, Aleh
• Nein/nöd/no
• Hello (including wave)
• Hot (including sign)
• That/das, this/diese
• Dog (intermittent), woof (ditto)
• Come (signed)
• Help (signed) + vocalized

Alex: [lying in his bed] Oh <muffled>shoot</muffled>.
Dina: Did he just say, “Oh shit”?
Nick: No, “Oh shoot”.
Dina: Oh crap.
[Nick looks askance at Dina]
Dina: Fine… blog about it.

Went to see Toy Story 3 with Alex on Saturday, (leaving Dina and Arianna at home). First theatre wouldn’t let us in… apparently the minimum age in Switzerland for the movie is 6. At the second theatre we had better luck… though they did charge us ~$40 to see the movie. Once our tickets were purchased, we visited the Freitag shop. I was very tempted to get a bag… but I need to make sure that it fits my laptop. Overall, a nice relaxing afternoon with Alex.

From Varacalli Kids 2010

Arianna now purposely walks around in place to make herself dizzy.

• I guess that as we’re preparing to take a plane ride is not the time to teach Alex to call his play dough “plastique” or “C4″.
• Dina: Alessandro is your long name, Alex is your short name.
  Nick: Arianna is your sister’s long name, what should we use as her short name? Ari? Aria? Anna?
  Alex: Let’s call her… Pepperoni-head!

• Dina and I entertaining 7 under-5 year olds that mostly didn’t speak English for Alex’s 4th birthday party was orders of magnitude better than I thought it would be. Pictures coming soon. All in all it was a lot of fun.
• Alex has Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Kart. He’s started complaining that, since he’s four, he should have four Mario games and is lamenting the fact that Bowser, the villain in the Mario games, stole his “Mario with the hearts” game (Super Paper Mario). We hid it from him last year since the 2D-3D flipping was confusing for him and there’s too much text to read for him to be able to play it himself.
• It anticipation of our upcoming vacation… and because he’s four, we’re putting our feet down and toilet training him. 2 days, 3 pee accidents, 1 poop accident. Ugh.
• Arianna is intent on keeping up with her brother. She’s walking really well. She started later than Alex did, but is much sturdier. Dina thinks it’s because she has to resist getting tackled by her big brother all the time.

  Dear God, why am I going to fall backwards again?

  From London, June 2010

• While she doesn’t sign as much as Alex did (we spend less time teaching her), she definitely lets us know what she wants. At supper she demanded a fork and then proceeded to eat with it. We’re screwed.

… and then you can go swimming!

Alex, “reading” the safety instructions on the plane.

Arianna clearly and aggressively signs “milk” now. And by “aggressively” I mean she starts signing it, and if you don’t move immediately to help her get what she wants, she stares you down and very deliberately continues to sign it as if to say, “you moron, I’m signing ‘milk’ so plainly that a 1 year old could understand it… what’s your problem?”.

Earlier today she very clearly signed “more”.

Alex is composing (fairly detailed and involved) Super Why! / Super Mario Sunshine / Super Mario Galaxy crossover fanfic using plastic Play Doh jars as actors.

Arianna just took her first three steps.

Oldie but goodie from January 2006 when Alex was about 7 months old.

Alex: Mommy, what time is it?
Dina: Eight o’clock.
Alex: I don’t understand what that means.

1. Dora in English: Swiper no swiping!
2. Dora in German: Swiper nicht klauen!
3. Alex in German: Arianna nicht klauen!

1. A couple of weeks ago, Arianna learned to hum when my finger was near her mouth in order for me to make her go “wubba-wubba”.
2. She now grabs my finger, brings it to her mouth, hums, and shakes it back and forth when she wants to interact.
3. Occasionally, she brings her hand to her mouth, hums, and shakes it back and forth. She is puzzled and slightly frustrated when it doesn’t have the desired effect.

Arianna has started using consonants in her babbling. As she sticks out her tongue a lot and blows raspberries, she frequently says “Blah, blah, blah.”

Arianna can hold her head up for a fair bit of time, and can occasionally roll over from her stomach to her back.