Little Stories

One of the saddest things about living abroad is that everyday our little girls do the cutest things and no one is around to see them.  All our family and closest friends are in the States.  So, I wanted to share a few small things with everyone that we find humorous.

Elli loves all things princesses, especially Disney princess movies.  Sleeping Beauty is her favorite, and it's not unusual for her to refer to herself as Princess Elli Aurora.  The other day, she called Heather "Your Majesty" all day.  We think she got this phrase from her favorite movie.  Well, this lasted until Elli became upset when Heather told her she couldn't do something, and Elli stormed off to her room.  When she came back, she stopped calling Heather your majesty, instead using that title on Sienna.  It was Elli's way of punishing Heather.

Elli also calls any person, animal, or thing that she likes her own name.  For example, she sees a pretty girl walk by in a purple dress and she will say "That Elli, that Elli."  She's watching the cartoon Olivia, and Olivia gets on a ballet outfit and  starts to dance.  Elli then turns and emphatically says, "Elli, Her Elli."  Her favorite baby doll is also called Elli.  Sadly, she might be a tad superficial since she likes to be the step sister in Cinderella more than Cinderella because the stepsister wears a purple dress.  "Her Elli, K daddy?"

Heather and I often call Elli Sweetie or Honey.  Recently, Elli has started to use those terms of endearment on us and Sienna, too.  It's pretty cute.  "Can I watch movie, Sweetie?"  "I don't want to nap, Honey."

Elli is trying to make sense of her world and has also finally figured out that people are speaking another language around her and its not just that she doesn't understand them. We realized her view had reached greater clarity when she was playing with her dolls and one doll said to the other "Nihao, I take Chinese class."  Up to this point, she has thought that most Chinese speaking people's names are XieXie which means thank you, because that's pretty much the main words Heather used when we first arrived here.  Now, she still uses this title with them but more as a category of people much like we would use the term Taiwanese or Chinese rather than their name.  It's fun to see her growing and understanding.

Elli's vocabulary is expanding quickly at this age too.  She often parrots words that she hears from us, mostly Heather since that's who she's around all day.  She doesn't quite get the words right, but she's close.  Here are some examples:
- "I want to wear my swim soup (suit)."
- "Let's ride the alligator (elevator)."
- "I saw the kolala (koala) bear today."
- "This is ree-DIK-oolus (ridiculous)!"
Of course, along with the good, Elli's also picking up some words we wish she wouldn't.  "Crap, I spilled it!" We definitely have to start watching the words we say!

Sienna is not saying as much yet, but what she does say and do are so adorable.  She says "thank you" and uses it correctly on her own.  She counts to 10, in her own way but you can definitely here 1,2, 4, 6, and 10 very distinctly.  We play hide and seek constantly since this is Elli's favorite game.  Sienna loves it too and she will often hide in the curtains or behind something and then come out and say "P a boo!" She loves books still and will do a little turn and plop herself down in your lap for reading time.   She is also very brave.  We went to the water park the other day and Sienna wanted to climb up and go down the the slide all by herself.  I let her do it mostly alone, but was still there as a backup.  The Taiwanese were quite awed by the fact that such a little thing was attempting such big feats.

Elli and Sienna actually play really well together and Sienna gets SOOOOOO excited when Elli wakes up from her afternoon nap (Sienna only takes a short nap in the afternoon,  whereas Elli takes a long one then).  Sienna will scream and jump up and run to Elli and give her a kiss. It's really sweet.  If I have to wake Elli up early from her nap, I send in Sienna to do it and this guarantees that Elli is almost never grumpy or upset when waking up early if Sienna is involved.