A Mini Mi

For those of you who know me, you will appreciate this Mini Mi foto.  We even bought Sofía an absorbent towel like mine too (which actually got left behind on a  trip L - maybe Santa?) Sofía really loved this foto shoot!  She may really, really look like Papi, but she is totally a Mini Mi!!

Crema de Afeitar

Another sensory experience I like to give Sofía is playing with creama de afeitar (shaving cream).  Right now, she just plays and isn’t interested in drawing shapes or anything yet, but when she is ready, it will be a great way to practice shapes, letters and numbers.

¡A Pintar!

Sofía LOVES to pintar.  She got a little emocionada with the pintura….luckily, it is very, very washable!

S es para Sofía

A friend of mine gave this book to Sofía when she was born.  It is a really nice personalized book.  There is a fairy for every letter of the alphabet and the book spells out the child’s name with a different fairy.  The fairy’s represent a flower and talks about an attribute of the child.  The book is written en Inglés, but we “read” to her en Español.  It is a super way to expand her vocabulario with words that aren’t really used every day.  The other day, Sofía pointed to the letra S of the S Fairy (The S Fairy talks about how Sofía is sensata and superespecial.) and said, “La letra S de Sofía”.

There is a New Jefe in Town!

Sofía and I went to see Papi at work….kind of a sorpresa. He wasn’t in his oficina, but after he got this foto, he appeared soon!

1, 2, 3, Just for Prosperity Sake!

I have forgotten to post about this, so just for prosperity, I need to mention this.  Since Abril, Sofía has been able to count both en Español and en inglés.  Well, at first, she would just say a few numbers, then she learned to say them correctly in order, gradually increasing to 10.  Lastly, she can actually count objects, which is a much slower process as we know.  But she learned them almost in tandem-almost…Español really was first, but Inglés followed almost simultaneously.  I can’t take any credit her for the Inglés because she really learned them from this Baby Signing Time YouTube video clip.

A Bedtime Story Revelation

One night, while I was rocking Sofía before bed, she started asking me her usual“¿Cómo se llama…um…” en inglés.  We had just given her a bath and combed out her hair, so it seemed pretty normal for her to ask how to say, “peine” en inglés.  I answered her, “comb”.   Her response:  ¿Hmmm…..es “come” o “comb”?  Of course, I answered her; she soaked it up, repeated it, contemplated it, and then went on to ask me another question.  I was jumping out of my SKIN!!!  I knew she could differentiate between sounds, what I wasn’t quite aware of is that she could verbalize the process! For those of you who do not know, these are two sounds that are very hard for foreigners to differentiate between.  Ah….proud moments of a Language Nerdo Mamá!

Campanita




Foto Credit:  Disney-Clipart.com

Sofía’s latest movie obsession is Campanita.  We discovered the movie on Youtube, probably by accident and she became so hooked that we actually made the purchase of the DVD.  I never knew who Campanita was before I met my husband (whose first word, I think, was "Disney"), but now I feel like una especialista in Tinkerology!  What we learned linguistically about Campanita is fascinating to me, the Language Nerdo.  We use the word, Campanita, but on Youtube, Sofía found a version of the película from España.  They don’t call her Campanita, but Campanilla.  What is even more interesting is the addition of the DVD.  The DVD uses Español from México.  They call her Tinkerbel! (Say it like Antonio Banderas!)  Sofía noticed the diferencias of course and asked about them.  I explained them to her and she decided that she liked to listen to the versión Española the best.  She uses the word Campanita and will watch the versión Méxicana, but sometimes she won’t!  ¡Increíble!

My Mami AND HER FRIENDS are Language Nerdos!

If Sofía could write and verbalize everything she was thinking, I would have my hands full. This is one example of what she would write:

I thought it was just my Mami who was a Language Nerdo. As it turns out…so are her amigas. The other day I was talking about something important like going to the park and I could tell that she wasn’t listening to me because her eyes glazed over. Then later, she called her friend who I thought was normal, but turns out to be another Language Nerdo. I don’t really know what in the world Mami was talking about but I did hear her tell her amiga how thrilled she was because I used the SUBJUNCTIVE properly. And the crazy thing is that her amiga understood and thought it was awesome too. I heard Mami say something about how other people get excited when their kids take their first steps and that she gets excited about the SUBJUNCTIVE. Then she told her amiga that I used the word, “Escarapela” and that she was really amazed at how my vocabulary flourishes. I mean, really, how does she expect me to identify the escarapela if I don’t say it! I don’t know what it all means….but it must be good to those crazy Language Nerdos!

El 4 de Julio, 2011

El Día de Independencia! Papi *estrenó a new parrilla for El 4 de Julio. He got fancy with the hamburguesas too. He made varios kinds (note the cutsie signs I made for the hamburguesas below) and everyone brought a plato to share. It was hot, we were outside and I forgot to take fotos. Sorry Sofía….maybe I’ll remember next year!


*Estreno- this is a cool verb en Español. You use extreno o estrenar (technically) when you are using something new-shoes, an outfit, a chair, a new recipe, a new hairdo, anything new- for the first time.