Ya-ya and Chiquita stories

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when Ya-ya, Sozlet, and Mo meet for the first time.

T, being a former pre-school teacher and newly-minted psychologist, has been the catalyst for us all to use gender-neutral titles.

Firefighter
Police officer
Snow person

So at the bakery, Yaya asks for a "gingerbread person."

The guy behind the counter smiles, and is on board with it, but is obviously a tad flustered.

As he gets the cookie, he asks Yaya, "Do you know the story of the gingerbread person?"

Yaya replies, "Yes!" (She has a CD with the song on it that she likes to hear.)

"Do you know what he... er she... er it says? 'Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the ginger....'" Blank look as he realizes the rhyme won't work.




Thank god I'm not the only one she baffles like that.

We took Chiquita and Yaya to the bookstore today for some final stocking stuffers.

As we're getting ready to leave, I'm explaining to Keetah that it's time to put away books.

"Put Yaya!"

T and I look at each other and she asks, "Does she mean put away Yaya, or put away Yaya's books?"

Keetah says, "Yaya!"

Someone was asking Yaya about the color of her hair clip and asked, "are you sure?"

Yaya sits back, crosses her arms, and says emphatically, "I'm always sure!"

Keetah is talking more and more....

While out one day last week she was screeching then laughing. I took her little face in my hands and told her to stop. She wimpered, "I'm a baby!"





Yaya has lately had a fascination with mean characters. Specifically, "Donald Grump" from Sesame Street and the Grinch. Tonight she insisted on being called the Grinch (with her voice "dressed up" to a growl). After hearing this, Keetah piped up with, "I Ginch!"

Tonight I took the girls to the pizza place while T was out at a meeting. I had a cold sore last week, and I went to great pains not to kiss the girls on the lips.

At the top of her voice Yaya asks, "how's your herpe, Daddy?"

haha! I love the little incidents that are sure to still be in memory when they get married.

DrewDad just caused a wake-up-sleeping-dogs snort here.

We had the Grease show on in the background, and I grabbed T to dance a few turns around the kitchen.

Yaya grabbed Keetah and exclaimed, "Daddy! We're doing a kind of odd-looking ballet!"

"Ya'll look really nice dancing," I replied.

Yaya replied, "and odd!"

That's great...

T was telling Yaya yesterday that we are going to have a party to celebrate a new baby. Yaya said, "Is it called a shower?"

Surprised, T said, "YES!"

Later in the day, they were playing and T was one of the dolls talking to Yaya. Yaya was telling about the party for the baby. "It's going to be a shower!" she said.

T asked, "What will you do at the shower?"

She said, "First, you take off your clothes and then you get in the water and soap up and wash off, and then you get out and dry off and put lotion on and stuff. So, they will do that and the baby will take a shower, too. Then they get presents and cake."

What great little minds!

FYI, new baby is not ours...

American baby showers appear to be much less boring than I'd always thought. It's good Yaya told me about this; now I can't wait to go to one.

Thomas - That statement is really funny given your sig line.

On a different note, it strikes me that Keetah seems to be turning into someone you can have an actual conversation with. Is she still just one, or is my sense of time messing with me?

18 months.

Scratch that, 19 months.

She likes to sing ("Itsy Bitsy Spider").

She likes to dance (tries to run into the studio during Yaya's dance class).

Climbs everything in site. (Found her on the kitchen table, dumping salt out of the salt shaker.)

Ahead of where Yaya was in language development (which only makes sense; she's gotta be quicker to hold her own).

In short, cute as a bug....

Wow. I remember being impressed about Yaya when you told us about her language skills.