If I don't write down something, chances are good it'll be forgotten. Ask me when Olivia got her first tooth or what her first word was and I'll have to tell you to hold on while I go look it up in her baby book or in my journal. (Ask me if I remember her three-year-old behavior and I'll say no, because I just deleted that right out of my brain before it even got to a keyboard or paper.)
So, this is pretty much officially Beatrix's baby book. I'll never know when she got her first tooth, what her first word was, or when exactly she started crawling or walking or skipping. But I will know the first time she said her sister's name, the first time she ate 6 slices of American cheese, and the first time she called me mama.
This is as close as it gets to a baby book for Beatrix, so pardon my yammering on below about some of the things I want to remember. No plot line, no good story, just the state of the Beatrix.
Language
She still says xiexie all the time, and something that sounds like bahLAH when she wants help. There are still long, convoluted sentences in a language that could be Chinese or could just be babble. Shua ya (she says it sccchhhlaaaaa laaaaaa) is still the only thing she says for brushing teeth. She sometimes says chi and sometimes says "eeeee" when we are talking about eating or watching some animal eat.
However, she's picking up new English words and phrases faster than before. Just this morning I got an "all bellah" [all better] for the first time when I kissed her wounded elbow. Another new sentence today: "I push" as we wheeled her stroller around the zoo. When she eats something she likes, she now says "ih guuuh" [it's good].
Other words/phrases that are relatively new: mahm (directed at anyone when she wants attention - John's thinking she picked it up from Olivia saying "mom" all the time); I gahl ih [I got it]; peet [feet]; pahLUH [Folly]; showluh [shower]; melon; lilahlala [lizard - this one comes with a tongue flicking in and out]; bana [banana]; Alshuh [Alison]; fuhFAHfuh [dishwasher]; kit-EN [kitchen]; fahfull [waffle]; kekup [ketchup]; wahluh [water]; schnaaaa [nasal sounding, and can mean snot or snack -- mmmmm]; turn [as in taking turns on the slide]; ahPUSS [octopus]; car; bus; choo choo tain; gogogo [said when she wants you to walk through the door first; wonder where she learned THAT?]. She loooooves to snort and will bust out a loud one at the most random times.
She also started referring to herself as Bea this week. She'll point at herself and say "BEA!" then point at me and say "MAMA!" and do that eight bazillion times. This is the first time I've ever seen her assign a word or name to herself. She'd point to herself if you asked "Where's Beatrix Nan Yu?" but she never named herself.
Olivia is either jie jie or ah-la.
Chi
For a kid who would not deign to touch watermelon in March, April, May, or most of June, Beatrix has eaten probably four times her weight in it over the last two weeks. I always wondered how a kid could possibly hate watermelon and was deeply suspicious of her hatred. Turns out I was wise to doubt. :)
Yogurt (YO-lurt!) is still one of her favorites. She likes it in a container, in a bowl, or in a tube. That kid mastered the yogurt tube suck-and-roll technique in no time flat. Broccoli always gets eaten before anything else, and the child loves Morningstar Farms "sausage" and peanut butter waffles and french fries and -- thanks to her older sister -- American cheese slices.
She hasn't touched a piece of bread since we left China. (Her records all said how much she loved bread, and she ate a ton of it there.)
Other junk
Her hair is really growing in, but it's all, uh, forward. She looks like a sheepdog unless we put it back in little pony tails or bows. Her hair will not naturally part and hang to the side, although I seem to recall this phase with Olivia, too.
She sat straight up in bed the other night and stage whispered, "mahm! mahm! mahm! I gall ih!" and then flopped back down. I'm dying to know what it was she thought she had...
Her sleep is terrible. She is exhausted all the time, but I can't make her sleep more. So frustrating. We sit in the room while she falls asleep (vive le wireless router), which sometimes takes 5 minutes and sometimes takes 93 minutes (not that I've ever counted). Once she's out, she's a heavy sleeper, but she's taken to waking up with the chickens. So, on a night when she's super tired and I try to put her to bed around 8:15, she'll be up until after 9, and then is often up at 6:15 or 6:30. SO not enough sleep. Even if I try to cut out her afternoon nap, she will find a way to fall asleep during the day, either in the stroller or on the floor or in the car.
She's had a couple of bad nights where she wakes up crying and just lies in bed until one of us comes to rock her. (Usually if she wakes up in the night, she hops out of bed and walks over to our room.) I can only guess she's had a bad dream or is processing all her grief and other feelings about the transition. It's heartbreaking.
Aside from that, she is an amazingly happy child. She smiles all the time (when she's not making the thundercloud face) and loves to be silly and laugh. She has so. much. freaking. energy. Seriously - I thought Olivia was high energy, but Beatrix makes Liv look like a sloth. Or a slug. Or something. She always needs to know what's going on and she's sure to be hauling a stool or a chair over to "help" with whatever we're doing on the counter or table. She looooves to unload the fuhFAHfuh (dishwasher) and who am I to complain?
She is a daredevil - no fear, that one. Beatrix will climb up or slide down anything, and tries to jump off of all sorts of stuff. I have a whole series of pictures I fondly call the "Beatrix Clings to Stuff" series where she's managed to climb somewhere and then gotten stuck; is it bad that I let her cling while I take a picture, THEN I help her down? Yeah, therapy in the future for that one, probably.
