Category: Photos

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NaNi’s Words – Getting Beyond the R2-D2 Stage

Naomi is now 22 months old. She seems to have gotten remarkably taller in the past month, and also seems ever less the baby.

Photos in this post: top—Naomi the explorer (Rattlesnake Hill, elevation 1,231 feet, next to Squam Lake, Holderness, New Hampshire); middle—Naomi enjoys reading Calvin and Hobbes while on a trip to the Lower Falls, Kancamagus Highway; bottom—Naomi shows off her block-tower-building prowess.

Right now, she is in a fascinating speech development stage, after a fairly long plateau (if anything can be considered long in toddler development) of sounding like R2-D2, where we could figure out what she was saying by the emotion put into the words and sometimes matching syllables, to using new words every day. We repeat what we think she’s said back to her in an interrogative tone, so she can confirm it.

One funny example: We were watching the 2004 movie Thunderbirds, and she was watching it quite intently. I asked her, “Do you like this movie?” She replied, “[Unknown syllables], [unknown syllables], [unknown syllables] cute.” “What!?” I responded, “He’s cute?” (Probably referring to Brady Corbet, who played Alan Tracy in the film.) “Uh-huh,” was her answer.

Also like R2-D2, NaNi can understand just about everything we say to her, and has been able to for the past 9 or 10 months—even complex sentences with multiple commands, like, “Pick up your shoes and put them in your room.” Of course, she’s also at the age where she’s developing a strong will (or perhaps a strong won’t), so she is equally good at ignoring our instructions completely when it suits her purposes.

She’s also doing other cool things. She can identify just about everything in a picture or storybook we can name. She recognizes people in photos. She builds block towers, puts together Duplo, and will sometimes partially assemble Lego people. She can climb the long ladder to our slide, and slide down it without help, now that she’s learned to slow herself down. She will come over to me, lie down, and stick her feet up in the air, which means she wants a “pendulum” ride, where I pick her up by the feet and ankles and swing her back and forth while upside-down.

She recognizes the tunes of many songs, and can even hum along to the “Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back. She brushes her teeth by herself. She picks out which pair of shoes she wants to wear, and can put them on. (When we got back from vacation, she insisted on wearing her ruby-red dress shoes to bed, as she apparently missed them while we were away.)

In the past two week, she has started using new words, such as up, and even surprised us with lifejacket.

She has managed to wrap every one of us around her little finger.

So, I’m going to try to enumerate her vocabulary. (I’ll be updating this often in the next couple of days, as I think of new words she is currenlty using):

  • ah-ha
  • all done
  • apple
  • baby
  • backpack (to refer to her baby-carrier backpack that we wear, or to her riding onto my back without the backpack, with her arms around my neck)
  • Bible
  • Blue
  • Blue’s Clues (Her absolute favorite television show, although we limit her to about one hour of TV per day. For the record, Steve was a much better host than Joe is.)
  • bye
  • bye-bye
  • cheese
  • cyclopentanoperhydrophenanthrene
  • Chapstick (Yes, I know it’s a brand name.)
  • Chaz
  • Daddy
  • hi (She also—just yesterday—started using hi in conjunction with a person’s name, as in “Hi, Daddy.”)
  • ice
  • Isaac
  • keys
  • lifejacket
  • marble
  • me
  • mine (I taught her that one. I tried teaching her gimme, but Nichelle took issue with that.)
  • Mommy
  • no
  • nooooooooooooooooooooooo (used especially when her brothers are bothering her, or trying to take something away from her)
  • okay
  • oooooooooooooooooooooooh (drawn out with a long o sound, as if in realization or final comprehension of something)
  • ow
  • ooooooooooooooooooooooow (used especially if her brothers are touching her in the slightest way)
  • pee
  • Phoebe
  • please
  • plum
  • pool
  • Pop Tart (Another brand name)
  • stuck
  • thank you (more of a syllabic match than a phonetic one)
  • T.V.
  • up
  • uh-huh (for yes)
  • uh-oh (for no)
  • uh-uh (for no)
  • up
  • Yes, sir! (Only when singing “I May Never March in the Infantry …”; she also salutes with her hand, and does all of the other actions correctly.)

NaNi loves to sing. Some of her songs are more phonetic or syllabic than verbal, but here are her favorites:

  • Blind Man (an old chorus I learned at Camp Fireside)
  • The Emperor’s March, from The Empire Strikes Back
  • The Farmer in the Dell (which her See ‘n Say® plays)
  • Happy Birthday (She surprised us by knowing that one today.)
  • I May Never March in the Infantry
  • Jesus Loves Me
  • Old McDonald had a Farm (another See ‘n Say® one)

And she can identify the following body parts:

  • belly button
  • ears
  • eyebrows
  • eyes
  • fingers
  • hair
  • mouth
  • nose
  • spleen (I’m not kidding)
  • toes
  • tongue
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Nichelle and NaNi Play Dress Up (At Clark’s Trading Post)

We spent part of the last day of our vacation at Clark’s Trading Post. Nichelle decided that she and NaNi would have one of those old fashioned photos done. (This is exactly the kind of thing my parents would never have done because (1) it might have been fun, and (2) it cost money. According to Nichelle, Naomi had a great time.

Below are the results, with some fun effects. I got tired of just the original and sepia, so I tried Lego (0fficially “Kids Blocks”) and stained glass, which I modified to look more like a mosaic. Click to view the enlarged versions.

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Nichelle Has Been Scheming

My wife has been scheming for the past few weeks. I knew something was up, because she would do things like call me on my cell phone, and have the kids chorus, “Neener, neener, neener.” I also ought to have been extremely suspicious, because she volunteered to drop the kids off at day camp, which involved the extra task of getting Naomi ready to leave the house early. All of the usual items were off the list. It wasn’t my birthday, and it wasn’t our anniversary, and Father’s Day has already passed. I have a history of puzzling things out from the smallest of clues, so she wasn’t going to provide even a hint as to what she was up to.

Today was no exception. I knew she wasn’t home because she’d said she would be out of the house all day, and she hadn’t logged on to the computer. This time, however, she assured me that I would find out this evening what was going on.

To my complete surprise (I don’t think I would have figured this out even with a small hint), Nichelle presented me with an extremely well-made dress that she made for Naomi. With the help of our friend Trish Dunn, Nichelle has been learning to sew, something that she has wanted to do for years.

Typical of my wife, her first project was amazingly well done, as the photo above shows. It seems that anything she wants to tackle comes easily to her, from sewing to cutting hair.

Of course, she’s really looking forward to sewing all John’s school clothes for next year. 😉

I’ve already quoted part of Proverbs 31 when talking about Nichelle, but here are a few more appropriate verses from the same chapter:

19She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. 20She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. 21She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet. 22She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

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David’s K5 Graduation….

Monday, June 6, was David’s graduation. Doug took lots of pictures, so you’ll have check later for those. [Doug: They are in now.]

David’s class put on a play by Max Lucado called, “If Only I had a Green Nose.” David played the part of the carpenter named Eli. He did very well. I still need to check with one of the parents about getting a copy of the video he took of the whole program.


Once the play was over, the K5 class left to get their caps and gowns on. During the wait, the K4 came up and entertained with songs, memory verses and different things that they learned throughout the year.

Once the K5 class entered the gym and headed for the platform it happened, I got teary-eyed. I didn’t weep, but I was emotional. Thinking about how fast time will go before he’s actually walking the isle to get his diploma. (Thinking about that now, I’m nearly teary-eyed.)


Of course, while we were out at Friendly’s, Naomi couldn’t resist being entertaining as well:


(Click here, or right-click and save if the above video won’t play.)

David is so very excited about going to first grade. He had an awesome year in school. The only thing he didn’t like was nap time and he’s very glad that he will no longer have one in the other grades. We got a great picture of the Davids together. We are very thankful for his teacher, Sue Mullett, too for making David’s first experience in school so sweet.

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I Told You I Had Other Children, Too!

Below are school pictures, taken a month or so ago, of David, Isaac, and John. The picture company, LifeTouch, has been to school twice this year. Given how nicely the photos came out, that was great, but we bought the smallest possible packages both times.

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Mi Hija Méxicana

I bought this dress for Naomi several months before she was born, on my most recent missions trip to México.