Glossary Guide to Understanding Mariele

Here is a handy-dandy glossary that I put together of Mariele's vocabulary words from her own unique language. I'm sure I left some words out, but this is the gist of communication with her. Also, forgive me for NOT alphabetizing.

Ah-wo: Water

A-wo: Flower

Ow: the sound made by a cat

ffff fffff: the sound made by a dog

Wa Wa: the sound made by a duck

Bo: any stuffed toy

Na: food

Na Na: breast milk

Did-dee: Sissy

Mama: Me!

Da-da: Lee

Be: Bed

boo-boo: either means boo-boo or poo-poo, must take this one in context.

Moo: the sound made by a cow

bow: bowl or plate or hairbow

boo: spoon

bu: bug

WO WO WO: she is singing the Wooly Wooly lamb song from church.

ROW ROW: she is singing Row Row Row Your Boat.

Ah la Ah la Ah la: She is singing I Like the Flowers.

No: exact translation

Ba Ba: baby

Bye-Bye: exact translation

Nigh Nigh: Night Night

And here is a funny Mariele anecdote: Lee takes her to her bed at night while I am taking a shower. He stays in there with her until I get there, and she is very happy to have him as a visitor, but when I enter the room, she literally starts trying to shove him off of the bed!

Not entirely Wordless Wednesday

I had to add a few words about how proud I am of my firstborn pictured above. Today she gets an A for honesty. I would say A+, but I will describe two incidences and you will see how I came to assign her this "grade."

First of all, she is on a magnet chart system for bedtime. The agreement is that if she will stay in bed at her appointed bedtime, she will get a magnet on her chart. Every time she makes a row of 7 magnets, she gets a small prize. So theoretically, it is possible for her to get a prize once a week. Realistically, however, there are some nights when even the lure of getting a magnet the next morning is not strong enough to keep her in bed. Last night was apparently one of those nights. The problem is, I was not aware because I was busy putting Mariele to bed. Lee is generally in charge of Analese's bedtime rituals, and I (the keeper of the boobs) am in charge of Mariele's. Lee forgot to give me a report last night, and I forgot to ask. So this morning when I went into Analese's room with the bag of magnets, she told me, "I don't get a magnet today." I texted Lee and confirmed this. Wow, she is too honest for her own good! Now here is the reason I knocked the plus off of her good citizenship A: Earlier I pulled a freshly chewed wad of gum out of Mariele's mouth. When I asked Analese how the gum got into Mariele's mouth, she informed me that it was just a "mystery." Hmmmmmm...........

But I really am so very proud of her. As I type this, she is downstairs having her piano lesson. She is so excited each week for her lesson, and she has been practicing all on her own this week! She is such a great kid!

Arbitrary driftlessness.....

The word randomness was just boring me today.

Sooooo I am getting so used to sleeping all night every night. My body is just sucking up the sleep. In fact, for this three day holiday weekend, I napped in the afternoon all three days! I cannot praise my baby enough for her sleep. She even has her own room now (the guest room). As long as it is working and we don't have guests, that is where she will lay her weary head for nap and night. She has totally claimed the room. I will give her the sun, moon and stars if she will continue this night sleeping pattern!

The good thing about getting more sleep is the direct correlation between my level of restedness and my patience with the kids (and Lee). It makes me a better, more pleasant mom and wife.

The other day at the playground, I looked up from helping Mariele and there was Analese skipping happily across the playground holding hands with a boy! His mom told me that he went up to her and grabbed her hand and invited her to play. Analese very willingly and happily went with him. He was 4 years old also. It was really quite cute.

Lee and I had our eleventh wedding anniversary. We even got to go to lunch by ourselves the day after because dear, sweet Yng Yng offered to watch the girls for us.

We finally ordered the playset! We selected the playset and got HOA approval back in June. Then vacations and hot weather happened, so we put off actually ordering it until now. They are coming out to install it in a week and a half. I am so excited! I have major plans. My plans involve a chair and my kindle.

However, considering that I almost have a heart attack every time I take Mariele to the playground lately because she is such a kamikaze monkey, I don't know if my chair/kindle plan is going to pan out or not. Hopefully it won't take too long for Mariele to grow into the playset.

Our treadmill has been out of order for a couple of weeks. This has had a negative effect on my miles. The good news is we should be receiving the part in a couple of days. So I'll be back in business in no time. It is hard to get outdoor miles this week with the rain from Hermine. I realize that some runners are hard core and run in the rain. But I am not hard core. Or a runner. Jogger is more like it. Amateur jogger.

I know Laura and Lindsay and maybe some others are running the Austin Warrior Dash the weekend before Thanksgiving. There is a possibility that I may be able to make it into Austin that weekend. To watch - not to dash. We are working out the itinerary of our vacation that week. I would love to be able to finally have a May mom meetup. I'm a little jealous of all the meet-ups! Anyway, it is not a sure thing yet, but I kind of hope that I can....

Tuesday is our Little Gym day this fall. Mariele is loving her class. However, she might be displaying some bossy/bully tendencies. She may look sweet, but the child has quite a backbone and she stands up for herself. I am working on telling her not to push other babies out of her way, etc...

I had to tweak the school lesson plans a little. We were doing a bit too much per day, and it was stressing us both out. Now I have a much more manageable plan and it is working well for us.

Analese's First Piano Solo

Analese and piano....let's see...She has had three lessons so far. I have been getting about three practice sessions per week in with her, but her teacher told me she thought 10 minutes a day would be more effective, so we are trying to do that now. My initial impression of practice with her was....ummm....maybe she does NOT have natural ability. Or maybe it is just too soon to detect natural ability. Or maybe four is ridiculously early to begin taking lessons. All of these thoughts have been going through my mind. But tonight when she sat down on her own and played from memory the piece that we worked on all last week, I finally felt that the practice was actually effective! And she is quite proud of herself for learning this little piece called "The Ice-cream Truck." So here is the very short little video. Of course, her technique is probably a bit.....four year oldish? But I am very proud of her!

Wordless Wednesday

She did it again!

Second night in a row of sleeping ALL THE WAY through the night! I am pinching myself. Can't believe this is happening! Still not expecting it every night. Certain their will be setbacks (but hoping for continued success). Now, if we can reclaim our king sized bed at some point, it would be lovely! I moved the crib into Analese's room (well, actually the girls' room). I may see if she will do daytime naps in there to get used to it. Still can't believe it!

The most random post ever.....

Yep, I cannot imagine anything more random than what I am about to type. Mariele slept through the night 11 hours last night! Yep! Completely random, and totally out of the blue. A little background explanation. A couple of weeks ago I got a little fed up with her frequent night waking to nurse, and I decided I wanted to night wean her. Well, I made a strong attempt the first night, and more feeble attempts the subsequent nights. To make a long story short, Lee has been sleeping in the guest room so I could make some attempts to wean her a bit in the middle of the night. I have been starting out the night sleeping in the guest room with Lee and then going to our room when she awakens the first time. She is not completely night weaned, but we have made some good progress. So last night after she nursed to sleep around 8:45, I went to the guest room with Lee (after doing a little blogging and having a snack). I woke around 2:00 totally shocked that she had not woken up yet. She normally wakes up around midnight. I checked on her and she was sleeping with her little butt up and I could tell by her breathing that she was in a deep state of sleep. So back to the guest room I went. I woke again at 5:00. Again, totally shocked! I would have considered it a super duper success if she had woken up anytime after this point. I checked on her and it seemed like she had not even moved since I checked on her at 2:00. So back to the guest room for me! I woke up at 7:15 (Lee was off today) and it was completely light outside and I was in complete shock that Mariele was still sleeping! I checked on her and she seemed pretty deep in sleep still. I finally went in there at 7:45, because I was not so sure about letting her sleep any later that that. She sat up in bed when I went in at that point. I gave her a morning hug, and she attacked my boobs. I don't even really expect her to repeat this again tonight (although I am fervently hoping). The point is, she is trending toward very good things! I am happy with that.

Now for the second most completely random thing ever - this afternoon, Analese has taken to calling me "Mother." I asked her where she got that, and she replied, "I don't know, Mother, " with a slightly British sounding accent. She only watches Tivo'ed episodes of The Little Einsteins on TV, so I don't recall seeing anything on there that would cause her to call me "Mother." Hmmmm.......Strange happenings around my house!