Words of the month (or two)

A while back I wrote about our daughter's progress, or sometimes lack thereof, with regards to talking. Well, it seems that everything has really taken off in the last month or so. I do believe the fact that there are more people in the house to visit (my in-laws are visiting) has encouraged her to speak more. She is also showing huge advances in her father's language, Urdu. I am very happy about this as she gets very little exposure to this language as its normally just me speaking to her in Swedish or other people speaking to her in English. I do believe that her advances in Urdu are helping her with her overall language development, even her Swedish.

Here are some gems from the last few days and weeks.

ballo - balloon. Not to boe confused with 'babb' (bubbles) or 'baall' (ball)
kutta - urdu for dog
mjk - mjölk, which is Swedish for milk, if she is not served milk promptly she will try 'dooood' instead which is the Urdu equivalent :)

She is also working away on different commands, most common are sit, come and 'mann', the last meaning close or closed (the correct Urdu word being 'band').

She also has a new favourite song, which is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Or as she sings 'winku, winku, li- mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, how I wo- mmmmmmmmmmm...'

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Gold Coast

Our recent trip to Australia consisted of a lot of car riding, up the hill, down the hill. Me telling my husband to go left, him turning right - and so on...

We revisited one of our favourite spots on the Gold Coast - Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. After all, one cannot visit Australia and not have a photo taken with a koala bear, and some kangaroos, oh and my husband wanted our daughter to touch a snake too. As you can see, she was not quite in agreement with his plan.

She was not so impressed by the feeding of the kangaroos. We teied to explain that we were giving some "nam, nam" to the kangaroos. She put the food in her own mouth...

Little girl, big day

We are back on Saudi soil and the day/night rhythm is slowly creeping back to normal. So it's time to get back in to the swing of things!

Yesterday was a big day for our little girl, it was her first day at day care! A day that I was sort of looking forward to, because the past few weeks were quite intense. Imaan was increasingly seeking my attention and presence during almost everyone minute of the day. I know it's part of her development, but coupled with shocking night sleep and day time naps that sometimes lasted about seven minutes, I was left exhausted

and needed a bit of a breather.

But suddenly at the door of the day care center my eyes were welling up. My little baby, all of a sudden she seemed so big and so independent. I guess the fact that she did not even look back to say bye made the separation harder for me :) 

She had a very good first day, although when I went to pick her up she started bawling the moment she saw me. Apparently that is to be expected. I'm hoping almost goes well for day 3 tomorrow!

Words of the day - Dagens ord

I thought I'd post some of these again. Really only for myself to look back on one day. I have no illusions that my daughters language progress interests many of you.

Mimi - Medicin. Lots of that needed as we are both sick.
Bapa - Barbapapa . Her favourite book at the moment.
Bam - Lampa (meaning lamp)
Baby - One of the few words she got right from the start.

Her favourite song at the moment is Itsy Bitsy Spider or as it is called in Swedish, Imse vimse spindel. She cannot say it though, so whenever she wants me to sing it for her she will tap her index fingers together trying to mimick the spider climbing movement. this was really cute at first, but when you have sung it at least 20 times in the last couple of hours it gets a bit old.

Life before Google

Imagine life before Google, or before internet for that matter?! Its crazy to think that our daughter will grow up with mobile phones, wi fi, internet, blogging, e-mail etc being the norm, not knowing what was before all that! It makes me feel privileged being the generation that got to witness these type of changes. I still remember the first time I searched for a book at the library with help of a computer, can you believe it?!

So what am I googling at the moment? The words "toddler" and "sleep" in combination with other words such as "refusing", "no naps" etc. Also keen on finding out more on "bilingualism", sine my daughter's pediatrician thinks it's "bad, VERY bad" (insert Lebanese accent here).

Another favourite is "real estate" and everything relating to it. It would be SO much easier if you did not have to worry about, pests, flood areas, city plans and all the rest!

Happy New (KitKat) Year

Happy New Year to everyone! No resolutions for this year (either). Many resolve to eat more healthy in the new year, our daughter seems to be planning the opposite... Below was her contribution on this year's first trip to the grocery store. Needless to say, none of these crispy delights made their way past the checkout, but one does what one has to do to keep a little tired and bored person happy while waiting in line...

Lilla fröken drar sitt strå till stacken när vi är och handlar mat. Inte en enda fick följa med hem, men hon var sysselsatt en god stund med att lasta domhär i kärran, medan jag och mannen plockade bort dom... Gott Nytt År allihopa! Ta nu en bit choklad, det har (väl) aldrig skadat någon!

 

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