Punctuation

In the last few days, Samantha has become interested in punctuation. I think this is an outgrowth of her interest in shapes. When we read books together, she points at the periods and says "circle" for each one. Today she started doing that with the dots on top of lower case i's and j's too. Exclamation points are "spoons," which took me a few minutes to figure out. I'd never thought of it before, but they do look a little like spoons!

Sweet Tooth

Samantha has finally discovered .... dessert! One of her classmates turned 2 last week, and he brought in homemade cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Mantha was the first one to finish her cupcake and climbed onto the table to grab a second one, according to her teachers. When she was done with that one, she apparently tried to talk another kid out of his cupcake. I'm not sure how successful that was, but there was plenty of chocolate frosting on her outfit when I picked her up from school! After rejecting her birthday cake and, more recently, chocolate chip cookies, I am relieved that she might be my daughter after all.

Little Mommy

Samantha discovered a fantastic new toy on our recent trip to the Bay Area -- the mini stroller. She was so enamored with Molly's stroller that the girls couldn't work out a sharing arrangement, resulting in several tantrums when it was taken away. She discovered Madelein's stroller the next day in San Francisco and pushed it in countless circles in a living room-playroom-kitchen-dining room-entryway loop.

So, our first order of business upon returning to South Pasadena was to get Mantha a stroller of her own.

She was overjoyed and loaded up some of her best friends for a ride. Later in the day we took it outside for a test run to the park, where she had some trouble strolling on grass. Now instead of reading books first thing in the morning, she hunts for the stroller to give someone a ride. We have also learned to look in the seat for missing objects, such as Mark's keys. (I realize she doesn't exactly look "overjoyed" in these pictures, but she's just concentrating on doing a good job strolling her charges around the neighborhood.)

How does Disney do it?

Today we took Naomi-chan for her inaugural visit to the giant Mitsuwa Marketplace in Torrance, a Japanese grocery/department store with a food court straight out of Kansai Airport. After lunch and some grocery shopping, we stopped in the bookstore and found some familiar titles in Japanese, including a coloring-book version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." We also found a book of origami based on one of her Japanese TV shows ("Maruchan") and a Hello Kitty version of Cinderella. She was interested in that for awhile, until she caught sight of a Japanese book featuring at least 6 Disney princesses. Mantha has had very limited exposure to Disney (the characters are on the ball her ojiichan bought her) but she just reached for it and cried when we took it away. We went back in and got her the Kitty-chan book as a consolation prize. She tried to read it to herself in the car on the way home.

Drawers

After being surrounded by them all her life, Samantha has now discovered drawers. She can spend at least 20 minutes just opening and closing the drawers on my desk, taking out pens, examining them, and putting them back. Luckily she's not strong enough to get the caps off. In her bedroom, she has taken to throwing her neatly folded clothes out of the drawers and onto the floor. This, as you might guess, is not a welcome development.

Vocabulary

We have been getting a few questions lately about Mantha's vocabulary. She has lots of words, not all of them in English.

Japanese:
Inai inai inai ... bah! (hiding, hiding ... here I am!)
Shu shu (brush brush, as in teeth)
Paku (eat)

Spanish:
Agua

English:
Bib
Milk
Mommy
Daddy
Doggie
Apple
Nana (banana)
Buckle
No
Baby
Hello
Bye-bye
More
Up
All done
Outside
Anna (her teacher)
Abby (Lim)
(I'm sure there's more we'll think of later)

Buckles

Samantha's latest is obsession is with buckles. She first seemed to get interested in the buckle on her stroller and has been trying to clip it together for about two months (so far with no success). It has gradually dawned on her that her car seat and high chair also have buckles, and fiddling with them can definitely add some time to a ride or a meal. The one buckle she has mastered so far is in the high chair cover we take with us to restaurants. Her whole face lights up when she manages to click it shut. Luckily, she has shown very little interest in UNbuckling.

Above, Mantha is practicing her buckling skills on her travel booster seat/easy chair.

Doodle Pro

Mantha got her first Magna Doodle last weekend. (Hers is actually a Doodle Pro, as if there were professional Magna Doodlers.) She played with one at the pediatrician's office and seemed to really like it, so I got it even though it said it was for ages 3 and up. This has become her favorite toy! She just draws and draws and draws. Most pictures require her to draw from all four sides of the Doodle screen. She loves to use the little magnet shapes (she protests if I take one away from her to put away), and she's even figured out how to slide the eraser on the bottom all by herself. Obviously, we're very proud.

Here's our little artist, taking her composition seriously.

Peek-a-boo

Samantha's teacher Anna told me a funny story: Samantha has a stuffed dalmation puppy named Skippy that is her best friend at school (kind of like Linus's security blanket). The other day she put Skippy in the play oven, closed the door, and said, "Inai, inai, ina ... " then opened the door and said, "Bah!" Those are the Japanese words for peek-a-boo, kind of like, "Hiding, hiding, hiding .... Here I am!"

At first I was mortified at the idea that she would try to cook Skippy in the oven (it could be in her genes -- her grandma did that with a REAL dog when she was a girl) but then I realized Samantha has no idea what an oven is. To her, it's just a place to hide something.

Doggies!

Mantha is obsessed -- OBSESSED -- with dogs. She can be bawling her eyes out, but if she spies a dog in the far distance, she'll compose herself and say in her soft little voice, "Doggy." When we go to the park, half the time is spent hunting for doggies. If she sees one, she'll chase it and hopefully give it a "nice-nice" pet. She has aquired several books about dogs, and the pages with her favorite pictures are all stuck together because she has kissed them so many times.

Making a Point

For a few months now, Samantha has been trying to make herself understood by pointing. If she's in the high chair and sees something she wants, she'll cock her head to one side, hunch up her shoulder and point. If she's standing on the ground and spies something up high, she'll point. If you're holding her and she wants to be carried into another room, she'll point in
the direction she wants you to go (sort of like a personal GPS).

Trying to figure out what she's pointing to is often an adventure in trial and error. I suspect she doesn't even know what she's pointing to half the time. She does love to point at the camera when we break it out.

Welcome to Samantha's World

Since her arrival last January, it's really been Samantha's world, and we're just living in it.

I've already missed more than a year, but I've recently been inspired to make a more permanent record of her growing up, mainly to share with her when she's older. In the meantime, perhaps some of the rest of us will be entertained. We've got more than 3,000 pictures of her on iPhoto (it must be the Japanese genes) but now that she's talking, I think some text is in order.