…language

No, this is not a post about Korean, but yet another baby post.

Neko was more interested in developing her motor and social skillz than in learning to talk, at least until recently. When other babies are supposedly distinguishing between mom and dad, asking for more and using the name of a favorite toy, she only said, “dadaddadadadadada,” and that could mean anything.

Sadly, both the Mr. and I are still “dada,” but I get the occasional “mama,” usually out of desperation when I won’t pick her up.

However, in the month of April, her vocabulary expanded from “dadadada,” and the occasional odd word (we’re pretty sure she had “done” for a while, but she used it somewhat indiscriminately). Here’s the current list:

ball
baby
banana
wow
dada
mama
more
done
all-gone (can you tell food is a favorite thing?)
up
bird
meow
bye-bye (both to say goodbye, and to ask to go outside)
hi
hello (a lot of effort to learn two words that mean the same thing!)
diaper (this was the first really recognizable word, and she’s getting better at it every day, sounds like “di-pah”)

Of course, she’s understanding a lot more than she says, and is able to follow some directions, depending on whether she’s feeling peppy, perverse or pooped. If one of us says “Diaper Time!” to her, she’ll toddle down the hallway to the changing area, repeating, “di-pah, di-pah…,” and only when she gets there does she remember that she’s not really keen on the whole changing thing, and then completely spazzes out trying to get away.

Her favorite indoor activity is using the slide, but that’s tempered by doing wooden shape puzzles, rolling cars, playing her ‘piano,’ decorating herself in mardi-gras beads, cleaning house, using pull-toys or push-toys, and sorting small objects into various bags, drawers and boxes.

Her favorite outdoor activity is using the slide. Not content with the toddler sized slides, she seems to prefer the tallest, curviest big kid slides she can find. This is a kid who is going to love the water park. She also finds time to collect rocks, chase cats and birds, run away, and stare entranced at mysterious somethings. She’s always up for a walk in the stroller, which sends her into a zen-like bliss. She’ll stare longingly out the window if we haven’t yet gone outside that day, and walk to the front door and say “bye-bye” several times, before crying if I don’t take the hint.

The one thing she doesn’t get a lot of is friend time. She naps when every other baby we know is awake and vice versa. Perhaps when the Panda-baby comes, Neko’s schedule will change and we’ll see a bit more of the other little kids. When we’re out and about, however, she is a social butterfly, and charms everyone.

Unfortunately, we’ve entered the hitting and stubborness phase, it’s just the early days, but I can tell it’s going to be interesting here soon.

T minus at most 10 days until Panda’s arrival.

…Car Show

 We spent some time at the Seoul International Car Show at the beginning of the month. Neko starred in a lot of covert cell phone pics. We’re never really sure what people do with those pics of foreigner babies, but it’s sure popular. A few people were brave enough to ask us if they could hold her and take a pic. This was mostly young couples, which was kind of endearing.

We scared this car attendant to death by trying to take a pic of Neko in front of the car. I think it was a “no touch” car, but he made it much more awkward because we’d just have taken the pic and left, but he kept pushing on her, and making her want to stay.

We also had a little driving lesson, and she used her mad push car horn-beeping skills to try to honk this car’s horn, but, thankfully, she wasn’t strong enough.

Since we were all starting to feel a bit under the weather, this felt like an ‘extreme’ outing, though only Neko fell asleep in the car on the way back.

…Egg Hunting

Some action shots of Neko from last week’s egg hunt. We arrived exactly on time, which turned out to be about 5 minutes too late (there were some avid hunters!), but several of the other kids gave Neko a chance to pick up some eggs by laying them out around her. We went to another hunt the next day, which was more like wading through a pool of eggs, so she got a chance to pick up some there too. She’s also played with them all week. None of the innards were toddler appropriate, but we can save the stickers for next year and eat the candy ourselves. (shhh!)

This generous little boy gave Neko half of his eggs. She gave some back, but kept a good number.