Cow, Car, Cat

Or, to be complete, "Cow - Moo Moo! Car - Voom Voom! Cat - Yeow!"

Dalia is talking up a storm. From the instant she wakes, she makes words and sounds. Every morning, the first sounds I hear could be:
"Foot"
"Eye"
"Hi"
"Ge Ge (pronounced "Guh Guh") - which means "older brother." Usually, she says "Ge Ge, HehYee" (Henry) all at once.
"Gar?" asking for Garfield, our cat
"Chahk" (sock)
Or, whispering, "Ba Ba" or "Gah Gah" (Daddy)

Tonight, when she was having her bottle before falling asleep, she had several glugs, then, "Owl - Hoo Hoo" every 3 minutes or so til the bottle fell out of her mouth and she conked out.

What's amazing is she can also now see pictures of the things she has words for and say the words in the book.

This morning, we read the book "The Kissing Hand" about a Mama and a baby raccoon. Yesterday, I wore a t-shirt with a cartoonish raccoon on it. As we read the book today, she perfected her version of the word, "HaaCooo(n)".

Sometimes I use words in English and then use the Chinese word. Tonight, I said, "those flowers are so pretty." She said, "Kai Yah", which is her version for the Chinese word for "pretty," "piao liang." My bilingual baby. Maybe it was an accident; I don't think so.

This afternoon while walking around the many soccer fields at the Tree Farm in Essex, with Dalia in the backpack, where Calder had a game and Tal was coaching, out of the blue I hear "Haacoo(n)!" Over and over. Not sure why she was thinking about raccoons -- or she just felt like making the sound.

As Calder played his game and I and others cheered for him, she became more adept with his name and yelled it out very loudly, "Cah Guh!"

I could go on and on, obviously!

Calder plays soccer on a club team called Synergy that practices up in Shelburne. He is #6 on the U13 team (i.e. 13 and under) with mostly 13 year olds even though he is 12. Since he's been with the club for 3 years, we know the families and the kids well. Tal, especially, since he helps coach. Today after the game, the Synergy U13 parents brought a beautiful chocolate cake with white frosting, and "Welcome Dalia" on the top -- to officially welcome our little treasure to the U.S. and the "Synergy Nation." They also gave her an adorable sherbert colored (white with pastel pink, blue, yellow, green arms, legs, and hands with white paws) bear from the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. The bear is wearing a white t-shirt with a Synergy patch on the front, and on the back is stitched "Dalia - U2". We named Dalia captain of the Synergy 2 and under team!! This box that her brothers are carrying her in the photo is the teddy bear box. Thanks, Synergy!

She is doing well. I haven't written recently as time has been limited, playing with her and watching her all day -- a joy -- doing 1-2 hours of work a day, and the other stuff of home. Just exhausted. Two weeks ago she had a very high fever which turned out to be related to an ear infection. She had been tugging at her ears for weeks. She was prescribed Amoxycillin. 24 hours later she was covered in spots and huge red blotches. We are learning about which class of antibiotics she can take; and yes, I am keeping a list. Thank you Cousin/Doctor Susan for taking a look at the spot photos over the internet on Saturday night!

Tal and Henry completed the 9th grade hiking trip on the Long Trail for 3 days and had glorious weather almost the whole time; no snow this year. Ralph and Ginger return to Vermont on Tuesday, which will allow me to return to work part-time until Tal finishes school.

Oh, our other news is that a beaver has moved into our lower pond. While extremely cute, and huge, he has also already taken large chunks out of one of the beautiful birch trees. . . Hopefully by next posting, Mr. Beaver will have moved.