Asah?!?

If you spend any time with Helen, you will find yourself answering the question, "asah?!?" (what's that?) several times a minute. It's so cute that we wanted to capture her saying it before she's actually able to pronounce her words more clearly. You can hear it at the tail end of this video. At the beginning of this clip, she's trying to make herself dizzy and right in the middle she tosses up her hands - another very common gesture of hers. This can mean "where?" or "who?" or "what?" and is basically the sign she uses when she's wondering about something.

She has just started using that gesture in the middle of her favorite book, Knuffle Bunny when we get to the page that says, "As soon as her Mommy opened the door, she asked, 'Where's Knuffle Bunny?' " We read the book over and over at home and recite it in the car to keep her occupied (or awake). Yesterday as we were driving home from Sayen's, she threw up her hands and made a questioning sound, "uu uuuh?" right when I got to that part of the story. It's so fun to have her participating as we read her books - even when they're not in front of her.

Guh Guh

Helen is working so hard at her new words. She's been able to say Mama, Dada, Nana, Grandpa (Bah-Pah) for a long time, but always gets tongue tied when she tries to say Grandma. Check out this amazing effort:



(oh, and I take back what I said earlier about the blueberries - she's back to devouring them. who can blame her?)

Welcome!

Want to know what Helen's up to these days? Subscribe to this blog and you'll get frequent posts. Here's the latest:

• Helen has 10 teeth that have come in completely and 6 more that have broken through her gums and are still fighting their way through. Ouch! She does amazingly well with the pain.
• She loves tumbling on the bed. We say, "dive, Helen" and she stands up and reaches her hands as high as she can and flops down saying, "ah!" (see photo) She bends over for us to help her with somersaults - sometimes she tries to grab her own ankles to flip herself.
  
• She tries new words all the time. Yesterday she was playing with the Lulu doll Kevin gave her and she called her "NooNoo" Later I said, "should we call Aamera?" and she nodded and said "Nah Nah" (Her word for Layla - Aamera's daughter). She sees us using our tongues for the "l" sounds and arches her tongues and ends up with "n"