Farewell Mr. Meh, We Hardly Knew Ya.

Its hard to say...it's the type of thing you hear someone utter, and quietly cringe.  But I find myself loving these children more every day, in ways and to degrees I had hoped for but didn't know possible.  Perhaps it's the gratitude of having accomplished crib training (not even a whimper from either child tonight!) and the promise of a good night's sleep, or the relief that Madelyn is now handing her plate to us when she's done with an "All Done!" rather than just throwing it to the floor (and her highchair tray too, for that matter, which she's figured out how to unhook), or just the fact that this is the first night in the past 3 that Isaac didn't lay cable in in the bathtub.  Or maybe it was the fact that they are truly learning to play together, repeatedly cracking each other up tonight as they spent the 20 minutes before books and bed frantically running around Auntie Patricia's bed in the guest room giggling, laughing, alternately crawling into laps for hugs and tickles then bravely venturing out to go down the slide and chase each other with screams of laughter.  Whatever it is, they are a wonder to behold, and I feel unbelievably blessed to have them in my life.

But back to Mr. Meh.  Isaac's vocabulary is growing daily.  For the first month, he spoke only in grunts and Meh, and was consistently good natured but not particularly communicative.  Isaac, would you like some more food?  Meh.  Is it bedtime?  Meh.  Do you want to come to Daddy?  Meh.  Will the Cowboys have a good season this year?  Meh.  Consistently funny, occasionally tragically accurate, but now...he's practically loquacious.  He's learned "peez" from his sister (his best rendition of please) to ask for things.  He says nigh nigh, ba ba, ma ma, and will repeat (oft missing a consonant, vowel, and occasionally syllable) almost anything.  Tonight, at 17 months, he even grabbed an empty bag, and went around the room offering imaginary cookies to everyone.  He's a marvel.

And Madelyn? I was a bit worried, since her understanding seemed pretty good, but her vocabulary remains limited.  I know, she's not even 2-1/2 and has only been in the US for 6 weeks, but I'm not expecting her to recite Ozymandias.  She's mastered "up peez" and "ack you" (thank you) and Mama, Baba/Daddy, Antie P, and can get through most of the alphabet, but she's not saying a lot otherwise.  Won't let go of "gogo" for dog (Mandarin rendition), for example, or Niao niao for tee-tee.  But we recently were reading a Babies first 100 words book, which has 9 pictures/page, and instead of asking "what's this" and trying to imagine the blanket-muffled muttering meant something, I asked things like "where's the monkey?" and "find the shoes".  She was about 80% accurate.  We'll try picking football teams this weekend, then on to Vegas!

 Isaac, with a favorite book.  Not as good as

Big Joe's Trailer Truck, a personal childhood favorite (that's hard to

find these days, dagnabbit),

but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Madelyn enjoys being under the slide as much as 

on top of it. Once again, money well spent!