Ummm...?

Today I called the national registry to register Shaylee's birth with the government. The call went like this:

Me: Hi, I need to register a birth.
Woman on other end: Of a child?
Me: (pondering what other types of births I could possibly be registering. Someone born elderly? My goat, perhaps? The birth of a new African nation? Yet I simply replied...) Yes.
Woman: One moment please.

I'm not sure that lady was really with it today.

Good Morning Starshine

Shaylee started smiling about a month ago, just after her one month 'birthday'. At first she only smiled at me, but after a little while she began including Elliott in the fun. And now she has a few select toys that also share the pleasure of receiving her toothless grin. A couple of weeks ago she started laughing, and it is the cutest thing! Occasionally she can spend about 20 minutes just laughing at me. It always brightens my day. Even on the stressful days, I love being a mommy!

Bilingual Baby

Micaiah talks incessantly all day long. Most of it is nonsense gibberish, but he is starting to build quite a vocabulary. He says several food words like bread, cheese, juice, etc. He can point to and name several body parts (his favorite is to poke his sister in the eye and say "eyes"). He can name several animals like dog, cat, horsie, bird, etc. He also asks for several things. He'll bring his shoes to me and say "shoes" then run to the door and say "outside". He has learned a few new cute things, like he says "oh man" and recently learned "c'mon" which he says with such inflection it's hilarious!

He speaks English mostly, but says a few things in Spanish. Since he was about 10 months he will play answer the phone by saying "¿aló?" He has a bath book with pond animals that has taught him "cisne" or swan, in Spanish. Since he loves bread he has also learned to ask for that in Spanish (pan). But on Friday we were at home eating lunch with a Peruvian lady, so we were all speaking Spanish. I was also talking to Micaiah in Spanish. He had eaten well, then decided he'd had enough, so he very sternly told me "no más!" (no more). I was amazed! He was in no way prompted, and I've never heard him say this before. One (of the many) thing I like about living overseas is the opportunity my kids have to grow up bilingual. And it's really fun to watch it happen.