Just Overheard...

Anna Claire and Mallory are headed down the hallway to their room and Anna Claire is lagging behind, struggling with her hands full of lovies and other toys when I hear Mallory...

"Come on, Sister. Vamanos!"

Too much Dora?

Conversations in the Car Today

Mallory: Mommy, does God make the sun shine?
Me: Yes, he does.
Mallory: Can you ask God to stop making the sun shine because it's shining in my eyes?

{sitting in Pinewodd/DuBose traffic with one hand on the wheel...}
Anna Claire: Mommy, you should drive with three hands.
Me: But I don't have three hands.
Anna Claire: Oh, then you should drive with your two hands.

Mother Goose Presents...

Nursery Rhymes are the girl's absolute favorite right now. All of their other books have taken a back seat to Mother Goose. We started out with the classic Mother Goose {you know the one with the black and white checked cover?}. I bought this version for the girls before they were born. This was the book I grew up reading, but I didn't remember just how many of the rhymes were hard to say or just plain didn't make sense ~ not fun reading and really boring pictures!

For the girls' birthday, I came across Silly Mother Goose {I have loved Mary Engelbreit forever}. Imagine my surprise when the girls had all six rhymes memorized after just a few nights' of bedtime reading. They loved both the nursery rhymes and the pictures...we needed more. I was so happy to find Mary Engelbreit's Mother Goose with 100 nursery rhymes. She picked all the best from the original Mother Goose and re-illustrated them. We are in love with this book!

I have been trying for weeks to get video of the girls because they are both talking so well and because they walk around the house all day reciting nursery rhymes. Mallory even says them as she's falling asleep at night {so sweet}.

The videos below aren't the best examples of either, but I'll take what I can get. They really aren't that into being video taped these days; they would much rather try to get the camera out of my hands.

There are other rhymes they can say more clearly and accurately, but these are the ones they wanted to say for the camera: Mallory is saying eenie, meenie, miney, moe, and Anna Claire is saying Little Bo Peep and baa, baa, black sheep...in case you can't tell for yourself. ;-)

Walkin' the Walk

Anna Claire is walking! I guess she got tired of watching Mallory walk all over the place. She really got the hang of it quickly. Monday she would hesitantly take one or two steps, and today she is walking everywhere. She's still a bit shaky and only walks in a straight line, but I'm so impressed with how much confidence she has gained in herself so quickly.

Mallory, on the other hand, has become quite the accomplished walker these past few weeks. She can walk sideways to get around a toy, she can walk around corners, she can turn around to face you if you call her (essentially walking in a circle), and she can walk to a toy, squat down, pick it up, and keep right on walking. Her balance is amazing.

So, what's next? Running!

Talkin' the Talk

Anna Claire and Mallory are equally verbal, babbling away practically all the time, and while their vocabulary is still limited, the words they can understand are many.

Above and beyond mama and dada, Anna Claire can say ball, book, boy, and bowl which all sound like "ba." She can say baby, bottle, and bubbles which all sound like "baba." ;-) She can also say more ("mo"), banana ("nana"), and snack ("na"). If I ask her to sing a song, she will sing "lala" or "ahhh..." She can also point to her head and nose.

Mallory will carry on a five minute conversation with you - in Chinese. Her vocabulary is more limited than Anna Claire's at the moment, but she babbles much, much more. In addition to mama and dada, she can say yes which sounds like "essss" and she also says two words that sound like this and that ("dis" and "da") which she seems to use in the appropriate situations. "Do you want this?" (showing her a doll) She responds "Dis!" "Do you want that?" (pointing to a ball) She points at the ball, nods her head, and says, "Da!"

Mallory can also point to her head, but one or two body parts seem to be our limit right now. I introduced ears yesterday to confused stares from both Anna Claire and Mallory. We'll give ears a few more days before trying again.

Having a Ball!

We have an official first word - ball!

With her new-found love of all things spherical, Anna Claire has learned to say ball and she means it! She speaks it the entire time she is playing with the ball - she holds the ball, rolls the ball, and bounces the ball all the while saying ball! over and over again. Nothing holds her attention now like her favorites which are those she can bounce. Sometimes she gets so excited that while she is holding the ball high above her head it slips from her fingers and drops behind her...which is what's happening in this picture.

Take close look at her lips - she's making the b sound; the word ball is on the tip of her tongue. ;-)

First Word?

I was feeding Anna Claire her bottle this afternoon. With about an ounce left, she seemed to be finished. I pulled the bottle away and asked her, "Done?" To which she responded, "Done."

I am not kidding!

She spoke it perfectly. Of course, I couldn't get her to say it again for all the fruit puffs in the world! It's been kind of like the time a few weeks ago when I asked her where her nose was and she put her hand on her nose...and hasn't done it again since!

I don't think Walter believes me on either account, but I'm standing by both. ;-)

First Word

Mallory said mama tonight in the bathtub! The two syllables were perfectly enunciated - crystal clear, not garbled together with other baby-babble.

Ironically, Walter and I were talking at the dinner table tonight about "teaching" the girls to talk. We always practice mama, dada, papa, baba, etc. He was trying to get the girls to say dada as they sat in their high chairs, and I told him that most babies' first "word" is dada and that I was resigned to that fact. And then what does Mallory go and say just a few minutes later during bath time? Mama! Walter was in the bedroom, so he had to admit he heard her. That's my girl!

So, does it count as a "real word" if she wasn't referring to me or even looking at me when she said it? I think it does. ;-)