uh oh!

Dear Sava,

It's 8:30 a.m. and we're in a hotel room in New Jersey near Philadelphia. You're sleeping in a portable crib in the next room, your mother is sleeping on the bed in this room, and Nico is sleeping on the warm spot I just vacated to write this blog entry. It was a difficult night. You were overtired and would not go to sleep. Then, you would not stay sleeping. This morning, we're staying in bed just a little bit longer. We want you to be bright-eyed for your first visit to the zoo.

You've been practicing your animal noises all week. It became evident last Friday that you've begun speaking real words ("This is an umbrella. Sava, can you say 'umbrella'?" "brrruhh"), but you seem to relish in animal sounds and playing your linguistic games with me.

The game

"Sava, what does a cow say?"

"Moooooo"

"Great!"

"Sava, what does a horse say?"

(You wag your head back and forth because this is the movement your mother makes when doing her horse imitation.)

"Great! You're such a smart little horse."

"Sava, what does a chicken say?"

"buh buh buh." (Your version.)

"Excellent!"

"Sava, what does a fish say?"

(You open and close your mouth without making a sound.)

"Yes! You're so amazing," I say.

"Sava, what does a baby say?"

Let's just pause a second while I explain. When you were an even smaller baby your grandfather taught us that the sound of the tongue clicking in the mouth is utterly fascinating to babies. You'd be crying and he'd click his tongue and that would be it. You'd stop crying and simply stare at his mouth waiting for the magic sound to happen again. Then I started noticing that a lot of people make this sound to babies. At some point you learned how to do this yourself, but it fell out of fashion some time ago, until now.

"Sava, what does a baby say?"

You look at me with the funniest expression and give a simple "cluck" of your tongue. Then you brace yourself for me tickling and kissing you.

This is your little game. The cluck isn't tied to the baby sound. Some mornings when you want to be kissed and tickled you'll cluck for every animal. Then, you learned how to say "uh oh". We think it must have come from daycare, because we don't say this. Now, you have a repertoire of sounds. Cats, dogs, farm animals, uh-oh, and you can shake your head yes and no (although, you prefer no).

Something funny happened when you began learning how to speak. A whole host of insanely funny expressions came along with language. The other day you were giving me a really forced and fake smile that seemed to devolve into a demonic looking bat child. Somehow, I understood this was a face you reserved only for me. After about 30 minutes of this, and other expressions, I called in your mother and you replicated the face several times. Everyone was in hysterics with how odd it was to see such a pronounced sense of humor from this pretty little child.

Since then, I've begun to notice that when I put you in front of a mirror, you begin practicing the faces that later show up when you're throwing a tantrum. Like last night, before and after we arrived at the hotel. I've also listened to you practicing your screaming voices. You cycle through them when you don't get what you want. You're beginning to match the right voice with the right face in order to help the will find its course. That's natural. But what I love, is that along with this exploration comes all of the games and the trial sounds and faces.

One of my favorites is your monkey. It's one of the reasons we've driven up to Philadelphia to go to the zoo with you. I can't wait to see your expression when you finally see monkeys--in person! Not just your dad jumping around the room, but real live monkeys. I can see you now, dancing around a room while scratching at your armpits and making your silly faces while clucking your tongue.

Then again, who knows what you'll pick up on today. All we do know is that it's going to be the highlight of our week.

Love,
Dad

Our Dinner: November 18th

Our Dinner: November 18th

emerald city salad
(fresh chard, wild rice (simmered in chicken stock and butter), red peppers, fennel bulb, parsley, broccoli, and red cabbage, all chopped fine) with a dressing of lemon juice, garlic and olive oil

sweet potato soup with chipotle cream sauce
(sweet potatoes and onions and carrots simmered in chicken broth, after carmelizing in butter: the cream sauce made of heavy whipping cream whipped into stiff peaks, and then a chopped chipotle from adobo sauce, and 4 tsps of the sauce folded in) as i recall there was some cumin and garlic pepper thrown in, and other stuff

we all got madly delirious after eating this meal- it was that good. recipes are available upon request.

I had four people in the kitchen helping me to make it. it was wild happy abandon; Jamba playing with Sava on the kitchen floor, blowing bubbles though a spatula (a trick he learned from a Curious George episode) making these big wild floating things- sava going out of her mind with happiness.

:Side notes: she has recently learned to make the trumpeting sound of an elephant.
:She has learned to make a hag face, after Jamba wrapped his head in a frame of fabric, stuck his halloween costume"billy bob" teeth in and thrust his lower chin out, and then hunched over in a hobbly sort of way and started lurching around the room with his crabapple fish-hawker's voice saying "i'm an ooolld hag, won't you spare me just a wee nibble?" and so on... So she picked up on the face, at least, and now they make old hag faces at each other. In her case, it is scrunching up her nose really tight.
:When asked "what does a fishy say" she opens her mouth open and shut like a guppy.

Coming Back from Seattle (October 2009)

From Mom:
Sava was just tackling me on the bed, and kissing me repeatedly on the mouth. She is finally getting the swing of closing her mouth before kissing me, but our makeout sessions always leave me drenched in a copious amount of drool.

The Letter H
We just had hot chocolate for the first time, tonight in the lobby.
Her first word is "Hi"
Her second word is "Hot" as in "Sava, those eggs are hot. Let them cool down first" And then she picks them up and blows on them, saying "Ha.. Ha.. Ha" (just now, down in the lobby, she started to try to pronounce the "t" at the end of it.)

She knows how to sign "bird" "dog" "kitty" "milk" "ball" & "shoes", and "water" and "sleepy" and she knows how to make a sound like a monkey. ("hoo hoo hoo hoo"). Today, at the Seattle Aquarium, she called the tropical hawaiian fishes "birds" as they floated in the space around her head, and when she saw the sea otters rolling around and necking in the water, she started to make the sound of a monkey.....

Tricking Mommy:
Up in the San Juans, early morning, sitting by the fire. You had nursed all morning and it was a bleary 7am, and we were softly playing in the living room, trying not to wake anybody else up. I was so sleepy and it was still dark, and i really was just bleary, astonished at how much energy you had, wishing my mom wasn't sick so that she could play with you and I could crawl back into bed. You were a little on edge, and kept making the sign for wanting to nurse but I just couldn't, after having nursed you all night, and you would get up and play, and scooch around, while I sat kinda grumpily and self-pityingly in the chair by the fire. Then after awhile you came over to me and looked at me and made the sign for "sleepy" which is to pull your open hand from your forehead down your face. I couldn't believe my luck: "you want to sleep? hell yes, baby! Let's go!" and so i practically leapt into bed with you, so grateful for the chance to take a nap. But as I put you down in bed beside me, you started grinning in your maniacal way- leering at me really, and coyly made the sign for milk, as you lay in bed waiting for my breasts to descend to their expected position. And I stared at you, totally amazed at how perfectly you had conned me. and then I just laughed and laughed, and I couldn't really be tired after that. Little trickster. Little abstract sneaky thinker.You are going to keep us on our toes.