Big Girl Talks in Sentences

Oh my baby's growing up so fast! Four days ago she perfected putting words together to get her point across. We've been playing this video game, Prince of Persia. There's a monster on it they you have to fight. Aliyah calls him yucky man. She brought the controller to me and said "Yucky man. Play. Please." I started to play and then couldn't figure out how to get past this one part. I told I wished Daddy was here. She said "Daddy. Help." Then we went to the bedroom to change her diaper. Daddy was there, sleeping. She said "Daddy. Yucky man. Help." Later, her Ama was trying to take her upstairs to show her something. She didn't feel like going upstairs and said "I wanna go to Mommy." She said her first sentence! I think it was the next day that she was looking at Camilla's barette and I told her "that's Camilla's." She said, "Na nee no's. I put it back," (Na nee no is what she calls Camilla because her nickname is neeno and when we teach her to say the Arabic letters we have her say the sounds. Noon, for example is "na. nee. no."), and proceeded to put it back where she found it. She's only 21 months old and she's talking in sentences! And her vocabulary is huge! Yesterday, she said "I love you."She's such a smart girl, mashaAllah!

She likes pockets. She used to call it 'pock' but now knows how to say 'pocket'. She calls people's shirts pockets and puts her hand down them, including her own. Her hand is not the only thing she puts down her shirt. Once, she put Anaagee's silverware down her shirt and as she walked away, it went "clink clink clink." She has a pocket on one of her shirts that is meant to put both hands in it at once. She put her hands inside and said "Hand. House."

Speaking of pockets...her love of pockets is probably the reason why she loves singing the "ring around the rosy" song. She says "rina mina rosy. pocket. posey. ashes ashes. down! yay!" She'll come to me and say "hand" and try to get me to play the game with her. Her favorite part of the song is "pocket. posey" and she repeats it over and over.

She has a video that introduces the potty. She wants to use the potty but hasn't done so yet. She tells me she wants to go to the potty so I put her on it. Nothing happens. Once, she was sitting on it for a while and then saw me doing something and got distracted. She got up to do it and forgot all about the potty and ended up peeing on the floor. If she had only waited 2 seconds! Oh well. She'll get it soon inshaAllah.

Some things she does that are amazing and things I love about her right now:

I love the way she says "happy face." She says it with a Chinese accent. She counts to ten. Not necessarily all at once but she says "1, 2, 3. Later says 5, 6, 7 and later says 8, 9, 10." She always skips 4. I guess it's hard for her to pronounce. Yesterday, Amin asked her what time it was and she said "9 o'clock." I was sitting on the couch with her on my lap and she reached her arm back, wrapped it around me and said "mommy. hug." She's so sweet! There are millions of things I love about her. She is so smart and sweet and beautiful. She loves going to her grandparents house. She says "pappy's house. please." She recently started saying "pappy days" because I would say "do you want to go to pappy's house today?" She says "plan" when she wants to go upstairs or outside. This is because I would say "ok. here's the plan. we're going to..."and then told her what the plan was for the day. It's really amazing how quickly kids pick up on things.

Well that's enough gushing over my daughter for now.

No time to post

Here's a post that I started but never finished:

Well it's clear I've been too busy to write. It doesn't mean Aliyah hasn't been up to anything though. She's so amazing! She is really smart mashaAllah. Her vocabulary is huge. She amazes me with how much she picks up. There's so much to say but I won't do her justice. I guess I'll just list some of the best things.



We have an inside joke (this actually started about two months ago or so). For some reason one night, when I was trying to put her to sleep, she out of the blue says "wall". I thought it was funny because it was so random, so I laughed. "Wall?" I say. "Wall," she says, noticing that it gets a reaction of laughter. "Wall." She says again and laughs. Now whenever I'm trying to put her to sleep and she wants to play, she says "wall" and starts laughing.

Talking and Growing

I haven't written in so long. I've been busy with work (I just started teaching social studies) and it's the month of Ramadan. So much has happened in just the last month or two. Aliyah is talking so much now. She has a very large vocabulary and she even puts words together.

When I put her to sleep she always says "this" and motions to me that she wants me to put my arm around her...so cuddly. She also likes to put her feet against my skin, usually my arm. She says "hug" when she wants me to hug her or pick her up. She also says "up" and "down." If she wants to get out of the stroller she says "walk". When she wants something she says "pease" or "this" or "this one." Sometimes she calls her daddy Amin, his name.

When she wants something she says "this" and nods her heading, pointing to an object. She'll point to something and say "Aliyah's", even if it isn't hers. That either means that it belongs to her or it belongs to someone else but she wants it.

The other day, Amin and Aliyah and I went shopping for Eid gifts. We were in TG Max, looking for clothes for Aliyah. She found a pair of shoes that were for a newborn. She thought they were great. She gives them to her daddy and says "buy. nice." and shakes her head in confirmation. At this age she already knows what she wants and isn't afraid to ask for it.

She really loves books. She also likes watching cartoons. I bought her spot on DVD. She loves it so much! She says "bot" when she wants to watch it.

Another cute thing she says is "oh man." I don't know where she got that. From me? I didn't think I said that.

She like to play in the car. Her daddy lets her go in there a lot. She honks the horn with her whole body, I guess because she doesn't have enough strength to do it with her hands. She leans forward and pushes her stomach into the steering wheel horn. She'll point to the car and say "Mommy's vroom", then point to her tricycle and says "Aliyah's vroom".

She goes up and down stairs like a pro. She loves to make animal noises. She makes the cow noise, sheep, cat, dog, duck, bird, monkey, wolf and owl. She says Allah and prays almost exactly like me now. She almost got through a whole rakat once =)

What are some things she loves...Planes and helicoptors are so exciting. She points and waves and kisses them. "Bye bye." She loves hats, especially daddy's. She wears other things as hats too, like my clothes or her diaper. She loves to steal her anaagee's chair. When she hears/sees her coming down the stairs, she runs and sits in her chair as if to claim it..."Aliyah's," she says. She loves to run. She says "go! go! go!" "run! run! run!" When we take walks though, she seems to get bored and decides to sit down. Then again, she doesn't want to go in the stroller either. She just wants to hang out. She also likes to find an interesting looking driveway and go up and down, walking backwards.

When her grandfather calls her from the top of the stairs he says "BeeBee!" She'll answer "BaaBaa!" They love to hang out together. He plays music for her and she dances on his bed. There's an afghan song for children and it goes "papaeyee papaeyee..." I'm not sure what it's about...walking? Anyways, that's what they call their music and dancing session: "papaeyee."

It's hard to get her to drink milk. The only way I can get her to drink it is to put chocolate syrup in it. She loves her juice though. One night we were eating out with daddy. He had some coke in a cup with a straw. She said "Juice. peaz." He told her it wasn't juice, it was water. She looked at him and said "juice" again as if to say "you can't fool me, daddy."

Well I have to go enjoy her now. Don't be surprised if I don't write for a while. There's too much to enjoy and little time to write about it! I love her!!!!

Giggles and Pouts

So what can I say about this little skinker? She's growing up so fast! She says "I did it" when she accomplishes things. Ha. You don't beleive me? I thought I was just imagining it the first 20 times but it's so consistent that it has to really be what she's saying. I think she's smarter than I give her credit for sometimes. Today, I decided to wash her bottom in the sink like her khala does for her kids. After I finished, she said "I like it." "You like it?", I said. "Yes" she said. Really? She's putting words together at 16 months? Is that normal? MashaAllah. I LOVE HER!

The older she gets, the more stubborn she gets. Hee hee. When we go somewhere, I put her shoes on and we walk to the car together. I start driving and within five minutes, her shoes are off. When we reach our destination, I see what she's done and say "No. We have to go. You need shoes to go." And she looks at me and says "go? shoes?" and proceeds to look for her shoes as if she had nothing to do with it. She knows she's not supposed to take them off. Her dad gets really annoyed when she does it and spent a whole day this weekend trying to teach her to stop. He starts off...two minutes later, the sound of a velcro strap can be heard from back seat..."NO ALIYAH"..."no", she says...ten seconds after that, the velcro is pulled again and this time Aliyah says "no"..."THAT'S RIGHT. NO!" daddy says..."no" she replies. I think you get the pattern. I can't help but just laugh at his futile plight. It's just shoes. I'll choose my battles. Alhamdulillah. =D

One of her favorite things to do is sit on the couch and pile all of the pillows on top of herself. It's extra fun when daddy takes one of the pillows and hits her in the face with it. Giggles fill the room every time. She loves to dance of course and tries to get me to sing to her by saying "mo" and doing the sign for more. I guess I have to teach her the sign for song. Her favorite song is one I made up about a poo poo diaper. It's actually quite catchy.

I've started to wean her and let's just say she's not happy about it. She only nurses in the morning and at night now. I tried so hard to get her to drink vitamin D milk out of a bottle at her nap time but she gets offended when I offer it to her and swats at it with a pouty face. I've tried a sippy cup with identical results. The only way I can get her to drink it is by tricking her into thinking it's something else. I put it into a vanilla milk drink carton that has a straw, sort of like a juice box. The only problem is she won't drink it if there's any mention of going to sleep and she can't drink it laying down. How will I ever eliminate her last two feedings??? She's a determined little thing.

Our air conditioning has been broken for the past few days and honestly, I love it. Aliyah goes to bed wearing just a diaper and in the morning when she hugs me, I get to feel her soft skin. She's so beautiful mashaAllah. She lovingly says "mommy" and kisses me and for that moment, I'm so content, so peaceful, so in love...and then she jumps on me and slaps me in the face until I'm fully awake...kind of like in the movies when someone faints and they try to get them to snap out of it. Yeah like that. Gotta love 'er.

Learnig and growing so fast

So I haven't really played many video games since Aliyah was born, but lately I've been playing a little Super Mario Galaxy with Amin. Aliyah saw us playing and was mesmerized. She wants her own controller and just sits and watches us, very quiet, very content, very intrigued. When we get a star or something else exciting happens, she points to the screen and makes a sound; "wow" or "ooo" or something similar.

Her favorite words are 'no' and 'go'. No is sometimes accompanied by the shaking of her pointer finger and is sometimes annuncicated so much so that it sounds like 'no-a'. 'No' might come out of her mouth because she's protesting something but it's usually because she's acknowledging that something is not okay for her to do or touch. 'Go' is usually makes its appearance when she puts her shoes on (or someone else's shoes), when Dada is going to work, or when she and Mommy are leaving somewhere. Anaagee gave her a purse and she put it on the other day and said "go" and headed for the door. Keys may also come into play in cases like this one. She grabs a set of keys and tries to fit in it the door, saying 'go', with her purse and shoes on of course. This morning, she was eating in her highchair a few minutes after Dada left for work. She started blowing kisses out of the blue "mwaa!" and said "bye-bye Dada Baaba".

When she finally makes it out the door I get nervous that she's going to take off running towards the street, but she's actually quite patient; she takes a few steps and looks back at the door, waiting for me to come out. Once we make it to the car, she tries to persuade me to let her sit and play in the front before getting into her carseat by herself. When we do let her play, she turns all the dials, plays with the wheel, and most importantly, she honks the horn by holding the wheel and using her chest and the weight of her little body to press up against it. She refers to the car as 'beep beep', 'teet teet', or 'toot toot'.

I'm typing right now and she's busy trying to squeeze by my chair so she can get under the desk and turn off the computer. When I wouldn't let her she said "no!" Now she's saying "hi" for some reason and "mommy". heh heh.

Anyway, another thing she's been doing a lot lately is cooking. She pulls up a stepping stool right beside me while I'm cooking on the stove. I give her an Aliyah-sized pan with a lid and a spoon or something to that effect. Then she stirs and puts the lid on, stirs and puts the lid on. She calls it "cooky". She was hungry today at lunch time and let me know by saying "nyum nyum" and doing the sign for eat (putting the hand to the mouth as if holding food). She then said "cooky" which meant that she wanted me to cook her something to eat.

She knows when I'm asking her a question. Especially "where is ____". If I say "where is your other shoe?", for example, she'll run and find it and give it to me. The other day, we had guests over and she was wearing a little dress that showed her thighs and had thin straps. Sure, she's just a baby, but I can understand why her dad didn't feel comfortable with her wearing it, so I took her to the room to change her outfit. I asked her "Where's your shame?" and she held out her little hands, palms extended in the air, let out a little "uh?" and proceeded to look around for it. You gotta love 'er!

She hits me out of excitement sometimes and I say "ouch" and make a sad face. She then kisses me and hugs me and pats me, trying to make me feel better. She's the sweetest thing in the world! I love her soooooo much! Alhamdulillah =)

So Sweet

I love to be awaken by Aliyah's kisses...and when I'm too tired to get up and she's bored of tearing the bedroom apart, I don't mind being pulled out of bed by my shirt.

Her favorite word is yummy. She woke up this morning from her nap this afternoon saying yummy. She spoke it in her sleep the other night. Her favorite book is yummy YUCKY. She lost her appetite for a few weeks but now it's back again with a vengence. Yesterday, I literally spent most of my day feeding her. She considers some unusual things yummy...like rocks for instance. She dislikes salad and loves ice and the whipped cream from my frappuccinos. Picking strawberries with grandma is very fun and of course yummy.

When I wasn't watching, she got super smart all of a sudden. She understands a lot of what people say to her. She can do things that she's asked like lay down to get her diaper changed, help clean up the condiments after dinner by bringing them one by one to the kitchen, or go put something back where she found it. She talks a lot now and although she doesn't always make sense, she seems to know what she's talking about, responding to questions and shaking her head. She mimics a lot now. I catch her lounging in my chair often, remote control in hand.

She kisses me and hugs me a lot. I love it when she runs to me, hugs me, kisses me and says "ma ma" over and over as she pats me. What a wonderful feeling! It's difficult to get her to sleep in her crib and we usually end up bringing her to bed with us at night. She likes to curl up beside one of us like two spoons, her head resting against her mommy's or daddy's chest. Sometimes she lays on top of me with her face smooshed against my face. Comfort is hardly a priority for me when snuggling is taking place.

I love her dancing. She recently incorporated the twist into her list of dance moves. My favorite, however, would still have to be the "rev your engine." This move starts with a fist extension away from her side. Then a pull back manuvuer. Sort of like the gears that turn the wheels of a train. Heading off forward or spinning in a circle usually accompany this signature Beebee move. We couldn't figure out where she got this from at first. Then, one day when Amin was putting on his spray deodorant and moving his arm to rub it in, Beebee repeated his motion. That's when it hit him that she was imitating him. She must have thought da da was dancing every morning after he sprayed himself.

She has a teddy bear she calls baby. She pats it the way I pat her when I'm trying to comfort her. She's so sweet. She really has a loving and adorable personality. She's also a handfull. She's always on the move. Beebee loves being outside and runs out the door every chance she gets. She has a fascination with her ama's toothbrush and always takes it. She also tries to attack ama's computer when she sees an opportunity when ama isn't watching. She's just a little explorer doing what she does best...explore!

I LOVE HER!!!

Trouble maker

Beebee's favorite new word is no. She says no no no no no all the time. Maybe it's because she's always getting into things she's not supposed to and making me say no. Sometimes she'll point to something she's not supposed to touch and say 'no no no no.'

Whenever she has something she knows she's not supposed to, she's on heightened alert. Any little noise will make her flinch. If I say "uh oh," she'll quickly take the object and run the other direction because she knows I'm going to take it away.

Usually, when I try to put her in her high chair or car seat, she'll act possessed, crying and arching her back with all the strength in her body. Then when she's in there, she makes the sign for 'all finished' before anything has even begun. Today, I caught her throwing carrots across the room. Wonderful. But at least this coincides with her desire to "clean up"...she takes a tissue or diaper or similar object and wipes the floor or table with it. Heh heh heh. I love her =)