El Camino

Last week while driving we were behind a truck that was pulling a trailer which was actually the back-end of an old pickup truck. Mamãe remarked how from the back it kind of looked like an El Camino.

LS wanted to know what this word was, and it was explained that it was an old type of car. Of course, no English/Portuguese translation was possible or necessary.

Now, a week later, I'm spending the morning with LS and she's been saying "El Camino" for seemingly no reason.

Later I find her, undeterred by her inability to read, sitting down pulling out Mamãe's cookbooks, flipping their pages and saying "El Camino... Dicionário... El Camino... Dicionário..." over and over again.

Apparently she's determined to find out what this El Camino thing is, even if she has to flip through all the cookbooks in the house to find out!

Taste of Summer

We love summer meals of corn-on-the-cob and bruschetta (especially now that our own tomatoes are coming in). LS is right there with us!

ABCs for Visavó

A couple days ago, LS decided she wanted to give Visavó (great-grandmother) a fake call in order to sing her the ABC song. She didn't stop there though. She also wanted to get a couple of her stuffed buddies in on the action.

Spoons and Potties

This past week LS made some good progress on a couple fronts.

One was using a spoon. Probably through "practicing" with her stuffed animals, it seemed to click one day for her how to keep the spoon level when feeding herself. She's not perfect at it by any means, but she is eating her morning cereal more or less by herself. Once in a while the spoon gets tipped just as she's getting it to her mouth (so close!) and she gets a milky goatee. This morning we got her sitting forward, which have been the last major ingredient for spoon success. Of course we're still at the stage of reminding her almost every bite on all the points of success: "Hold the neck of the spoon", "keep it level", "sit forward".

The other was the beginning of some potty training. Too complicated to go into all the details here, but it's a combination of keeping a close eye on her for the signs that she has to go and also her letting us know. The last few days we've been able to just use the diapers for naps, overnight, and when traveling outside the house. Of course, there have been a couple "accidents", a fair share of wet underwear, but lots of happy success too.

On the failure side of the spectrum, LS and Mamãe tried to go out to a (free) movie last Wednesday, but LS couldn't handle it. They're showing free movies at the theater in town every Wednesday and this was the first attempt (it was "Horton Hears a Who"). I wasn't there, but apparently the combination of the dark theater and the loud flashing opening scenes were too much for her. After a couple attempts to sit and watch it was called off. From what I understand, LS and Mamãe had a nice time at the Café in town instead.