Listen to the Rain

When she sees herself in a mirror or a picture of herself, Laila still points and says "baby!" so baby update it is.

At the Twenty-Two Month Baby Update, I was capable of listing basically all the words she knew. I'm no longer capable of doing that. She seems like she learns new words every single day and is capable of extrapolating meaning from the way we use the words. For example, lately we've been trying to teach her to put her toys away (with very minimal success, but changing habits takes time) so we'll ask her to "Laila, could you put that back please?" Having learned what "back" means, she now uses it when she's somewhere she doesn't want to be. If I pick her up to change her she'll start crying and babbling and say like "😭😭 asdfjkslfd back. 😭😭 owieriwj back." She'll pick up rocks and sticks outside and say "rock" and "'tick" (consonant clusters still give her trouble). When she wants to leave, she'll pick between "walk," "'side" (for outside), or "go." When she opens a door, she'll say "beep beep beep."

Lately, sashagee has been watching Kimono Mom, and in the way that Japanese women often do, Kimono Mom will elongate the end of her sentences when she's speaking formally. バターを入れま～す (butā wo irema~su, "add in the butter") or もうちょっとだけ待ってま～す (mō chotto dake matte ma~su, "We're just waiting for a moment").

Yesterday, while watching, Laila starting going "ma~su, ma~su, ma~su." She's also learned 可愛い (kawaii, "cute") and 美味しい (oishii, "delicious) from watching it. Because she likes watching Kimono Mom's daughter, when she wants to watch a video from her she'll ask "Watch baby?"

That's not to say that she's all fun and smiles, of course. Despite her normally cheery disposition, she definitely is more prone to throwing tantrums now as she's developed her own idea of what she wants to do and how she wants to behave, and it does not always coincide with her parents' desires. Even when her parents are trying to help, like earlier today when sashagee was cooking pasta for Laila to have for lunch and Laila kept wanting to be held up to the stove so she could see what was going on. When sashagee didn't want curiosity to kill the cat, Laila got very angry about being left in the dark.

Or, here's another example:


My happy, cheerful, helpful little girl, carrying the cheesecake that we bought for sashagee home from the store. But this picture was take about one minute after she got absolutely furious that I wouldn't immediately turn over the cheesecake so she could carry it. I handed it to her and she slung it over her arm, carried it about a block, and then decided it was too heavy and was happy to turn it back over to me.

She still loves books, though she doesn't quite have the patience to sit through a whole one unless Nana is reading it to her. Lately, though, she's been asking for a book before bedtime, so it might be time to start incorporating bedtime stories into our routines.

Right now, as I write this, sashagee is singing a song about stars and Laila is trying her best to sing along.

What other ways will she grow and change?