Walking and utterances, sleep talking

Nem-nem for a while has been learning to walk, and has abandoned crawling and walks pretty well by now.

I took her for a walk recently down the same place where Mago used to visit the deer lawn ornaments (we still do sometimes) which I swear I’ve written about but can’t seem to find the entry.. hope it’s still there.. anyway I took her for a walk. On the walk she pointed to a tree and signed “bird”, and when we passed flowers, she scrunched her lips and nose together and exhaled sharply, to imitate sniffing: this is her own sign for “flower”. I set her on the sidewalk to examine some purple daisies in someone’s yard, and she batted them, and when they bounced on their stem she laughed. Then she noticed some ants and stooped down to examine them, and she did this short low sort of raspy grunt. It’s her word for “creature”: she does this for bugs, dogs, animals she sees on TV etc.

The other day she looked at me from her car seat while I was outside the car, and she called: “Dada”. I pointed at her and said “Baby”. She smiled and did the sign for baby: holding one hand on the other elbow and cradling her arms back and forth.

Tia tells me the other day when they went to a playground, Nem-nem said “play”, and the other day she said “doll” when handed a doll. This morning we read a muppet babies book, and seeing baby Kermit she made the sign for frog: hold the back of your hand on your chin and curl three fingers down and up several times.

Mago has amused us with more things he says in his sleep. Tia heard these ones:

In the way a child declares small facts like having visited Denver, importantly:

I’m someone’s brutha!..

Then in a sing-song sort of way going up on the second word, he continued:

Whatch’your name?

Recently I put his blanket back on him at night and he said:

You’re the nice fishy.

Another night I put his blanket back on him and he stirred and urgently whined in alarm:

You’re underwater!

The other night I just went and held him while he was asleep. In his sleep he instinctively tried to put his arm around my neck, but it just kind of flopped up to the side of my neck and he couldn’t get it far around. After I stayed there for a while he whined in his sleep:

I can’t reach you!

So I let his arm drop and I put his plush monkey (Millie) in his arms.