Mommy's little helper

Natalie likes to help emptying the dishwasher...

"I wonder how flat my nose can get..."

"This is fun!"

A fun-filled morning

Today, we had a busy morning. First, we went to get Natalie a haircut. She was still a bit hesitant about the whole thing, but she did a lot better than last time. It helped that she got to hold on to Thomas the Tank Engine:

And again, the people at Snips and Giggles did a great job. Here's the result:

After that, we took Natalie to the park. She had a great time on all the playground equipment, but the swing is still her favorite:

Natalie - English dictionary - expanded version

A few weeks ago I put the list below on the sidebar. I thought it would be fun to keep it up to date with new words once in a while. I guess I didn't quite count on how fast Natalie's vocabulary is expanding.

So, today I'll put the original list in a blog entry instead, along with a few general updates on all the cute stuff Natalie is telling us on a daily basis:

Natalie knows what a lot of animals say now: The cow says mooh (and it is not always whispering anymore), the lion says "roah" (still always whispered), the cat says "me" (meow), the horse (and the giraffe) says "ne-ne" (neigh, neigh), and all birds including ducks say gak-gak-gak (quack, quack, quack).

"Mama" turned into "meh-me", but at least it is only used for Mommy. "Dada" is still Daddy, but it is also used for many different guys in magazines or even on TV (hmm...)

"More" sounds a lot more like, well, "more" instead of "muhr".

And there are at least as many new words now as there was on the list to begin with, including house, milk, and truck (which is used a lot when we are driving, Natalie likes to point to all the trucks and tell us about them).

Natalie is also getting a lot better at using the words to tell us what she wants. She'll come and ask us for Milk if she's thirsty. And yesterday at dinner, she asked us for a Dora yogurt (there is a picture of Dora the Explorer on the yogurt cups) without it even being on the table - she knew it was in the fridge.

It's amazing how fast this whole vocabulary thing is building. At this speed, I think she'll be reading Shakespeare to us for bedtime stories soon!

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Dictionary - Natalie to English (original version)

Ah-pla - Airplane
Ahpl - Apple
Ahtju - You sneezed (or coughed)
Baaaal - Ball
Bir - Bird
Boblllh - Bubbles
Bumphhh - Comment on any unexpected noise
Bye-bye - Bye-bye
Caah - Car
Cheesss - Cheese
Coww - Cow
Dada - Daddy
Dju - Juice
Doh - Dora (the Explorer)
DuCKh - Duck
Elmoh - Elmo
Gak-gak-gak - What the duck says
Mama - Mommy
Muh (always whispered) - What the cow says
Muhr - More
Nana - Banana
Oud-sij - Outside
Roah (always whispered) - what the bear says
Staahh - Star
StuCKh - Stuck
Te-Beah - teddybear
Tæppe - Blankie (don't konw why she chose to speak Danish for just this one word...)
Uh-oh - Used whenever someone drops something
Wahh - Water

The joys of being a Dad

Happy Father's Day!

Attention Walgreens Shoppers

If you were shopping at Walgreens late yesterday afternoon and heard a little girl cry loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood, please don't think her mom was torturing her...

Natalie and I went to Walgreens to get her passport photo taken. She had gotten a great nap before that, she had had her afternoon snack, and she was in a great mood. Until we tried to get her picture taken... She didn't want to. The people at Walgreens were amazing. They went to the toy isle to get a blue rubber duckie and a pink piggy bank for her to look at. They tried to play peek-a-boo.

We tried to have her stand on the chair, to have her sit on the chair with a piece of white posterboard behind her, to have her stand on the floor with the posterboard behind her, to hold her up high... Eventually, they got a picture, with me sitting on the chair and her standing on my lap - she was tall enough that they could get a "mug-shot" of her without getting me in the picture.

And of course, as soon as we were done, she was in a great mood again!

So, to the people looking at us with that look, you know, that just says "candidate for Worst-Mom-of-the-Year-Award": Sorry that we were so loud, but I really wish you could have seen her later that day, when we played around in the kitchen while Daddy was cooking and Natalie laughed so hard that she got the hickups!

Where are all your fingers?

Karsten told me this story from last weekend when the two of them were outside:

Karsten asked Natalie "Where are all your little fingers"? He was wondering what she was going to do - how to point to them all when she needed a finger to point with. Natalie's solution was simple: She pointed to the fingers on one hand, using her word for "there", then switched around and pointed to the other hand and said "More"!

My little artist

Natalie loves to color with her crayons and (washable) markers:

Ten things I love about you

1. The little wrinkle on your nose when you laugh

2. Your belly-laughter

3. How you put your head on my shoulder and snuggle up at bedtime

4. The sound of your "talking" to yourself in your crib when you wake up in the morning.

5. The way you give us a HUGE smile when we understand what you want more of at the dinner table

6. The way you say "Thank You" in sign language.

7. Your endless fascination with anything "Elmo".

8. How you jump without ever leaving the ground:

9. The way you like to dance:

10. Your gorgeous blue eyes:

A vision in pink Elmo

Friday was pajamas-day in daycare...