If Raina Isn’t Plotting World Domination, It’s Not For Lack of Skills Acquisition
Hey, so, Krystal, thanks for inviting me to guest-post on the Raina blog. I want to do a Top Ten-ish round-up of New Years weekend highlights. It’s going to be more than ten, I’m just warning you. There were a lot of highlights, and I remembered another one on the subway a couple of days ago but didn’t jot it down and now I can’t think of it. It just goes to show that a weekend with the Whomptons is potentially a fathomless experience. I highly recommend it.
Anyhoo, virtually all of the highlights are about Raina and her accomplishments, which we Nashville Comptons experience as kind of a warp-speed journey through early child development. One Christmas, Raina is flopping over on the Helga, then a year later, she’s leading parades around the Kensington Park with Papa Bill’s old pull-toy trains, and so on.
So, tracking Raina’s progress toward her inevitable World Domination, here are some achievements I observed last weekend in St. Louis.
1. “Jinga Behs”
Jinga Behs
Jinga Behs
Jinga ah d’waay.
O’ma fun i-i t’rye
Onna ah-ah-ah leigh -- Hey!
2. She counted up her fingers (“Ten!”) and her toes (“Ten!”).
3. She made a gingerbread man out of Playdoh with Stephanie and Mama Jo, and then dressed it in all the Playdoh clothes it would need to stay warm if it went outside in the cold.
4. She really really liked the Whiffle Balls she unwrapped from Stephanie. As Eric noted, she liked them religiously, or ecstatically.
5. But she bonded with the whistling bird Aunt Ginny sent. The audio quality on that squeeze toy is amazing!
6. Raina definitely likes to sort and match, as reported previously on this blog. I regifted to her a small green stuffed frog from my Santa stocking, and she matched it right up with the small green plastic frogs from her bath toys to make one big frog family that rode trains together. It was pretty funny when she squeezed one of the little bath frogs, and water came out of its butt.
7. She also matched the purple “2008” glasses I brought from Times Square to the purple New Years King crown she made at daycare.
8. Speaking of the purple King crown,
the first time I saw it was when I went into daycare on Monday with Eric to pick Raina up. She was wearing the crown as she came out of the classroom, and when she saw me at the end of the hall she shouted, “Em-my!” Then she pushed past her daddy like he was just so much chopped liver and ran straight to me for a big hug. It was awesome!
9. Another reason I know Raina loves me is that she didn’t gleefully accuse me of being a traitor to the Round Table at Camelot, like a certain chopped liver brother I know.
10. Speaking of chivalry and valor, Raina bravely stood up to the Papa Bill Blanket Monster that chomps blankets and ruthlessly tickles feet. She defeated it soundly.
11. She has proven to my satisfaction that baby sign doesn’t interfere with language acquisition. In three days I didn’t see a single sign. When she wanted “More,” she asked for it verbally.
12. And we had several interesting conversations. One was when she looked at my watch and the hands on the face, the big hand and the little hand. Then she put her hands together and said that they were the same. That is, people’s hands match, but clocks have big and little hands.
13. One morning, I put the kettle on for tea. When the water boiled, I poured it over a tea bag in a mug. Raina watched me do this, and then helpfully warned me that the water in the mug was hot. “How do you know it’s hot?” I asked her. She was sitting several feet away, so she couldn’t feel the heat from the mug or the kettle. But she thought a moment, and then said, “’cz the steam’s coming up.” From the other room, Krystal came running into the kitchen, saying, “Wha-? She’s got a great memory! I told her about steam two weeks ago!”
14. I called Raina a monkey at least once during the weekend. Her emphatic reply: “I’m not a monkey, I’m Raina!”
15. Finally, my favorite vocabulary word I taught to Raina this weekend was “rambunctious.” As in, When Raina kicks and jumps on her big beach ball all over the basement, she can say, “I’m rambunctious.”
Krystal, Eric, Sam, Raina, and Roxane, thanks for hosting a great New Years weekend! And thanks for letting me share some of my memories with Owensboro, MICDS, and any other readers.
Anyhoo, virtually all of the highlights are about Raina and her accomplishments, which we Nashville Comptons experience as kind of a warp-speed journey through early child development. One Christmas, Raina is flopping over on the Helga, then a year later, she’s leading parades around the Kensington Park with Papa Bill’s old pull-toy trains, and so on.
So, tracking Raina’s progress toward her inevitable World Domination, here are some achievements I observed last weekend in St. Louis.
1. “Jinga Behs”
Jinga Behs
Jinga Behs
Jinga ah d’waay.
O’ma fun i-i t’rye
Onna ah-ah-ah leigh -- Hey!
2. She counted up her fingers (“Ten!”) and her toes (“Ten!”).
3. She made a gingerbread man out of Playdoh with Stephanie and Mama Jo, and then dressed it in all the Playdoh clothes it would need to stay warm if it went outside in the cold.
4. She really really liked the Whiffle Balls she unwrapped from Stephanie. As Eric noted, she liked them religiously, or ecstatically.
5. But she bonded with the whistling bird Aunt Ginny sent. The audio quality on that squeeze toy is amazing!
6. Raina definitely likes to sort and match, as reported previously on this blog. I regifted to her a small green stuffed frog from my Santa stocking, and she matched it right up with the small green plastic frogs from her bath toys to make one big frog family that rode trains together. It was pretty funny when she squeezed one of the little bath frogs, and water came out of its butt.
7. She also matched the purple “2008” glasses I brought from Times Square to the purple New Years King crown she made at daycare.
8. Speaking of the purple King crown,
the first time I saw it was when I went into daycare on Monday with Eric to pick Raina up. She was wearing the crown as she came out of the classroom, and when she saw me at the end of the hall she shouted, “Em-my!” Then she pushed past her daddy like he was just so much chopped liver and ran straight to me for a big hug. It was awesome!9. Another reason I know Raina loves me is that she didn’t gleefully accuse me of being a traitor to the Round Table at Camelot, like a certain chopped liver brother I know.
10. Speaking of chivalry and valor, Raina bravely stood up to the Papa Bill Blanket Monster that chomps blankets and ruthlessly tickles feet. She defeated it soundly.
11. She has proven to my satisfaction that baby sign doesn’t interfere with language acquisition. In three days I didn’t see a single sign. When she wanted “More,” she asked for it verbally.
12. And we had several interesting conversations. One was when she looked at my watch and the hands on the face, the big hand and the little hand. Then she put her hands together and said that they were the same. That is, people’s hands match, but clocks have big and little hands.
13. One morning, I put the kettle on for tea. When the water boiled, I poured it over a tea bag in a mug. Raina watched me do this, and then helpfully warned me that the water in the mug was hot. “How do you know it’s hot?” I asked her. She was sitting several feet away, so she couldn’t feel the heat from the mug or the kettle. But she thought a moment, and then said, “’cz the steam’s coming up.” From the other room, Krystal came running into the kitchen, saying, “Wha-? She’s got a great memory! I told her about steam two weeks ago!”
14. I called Raina a monkey at least once during the weekend. Her emphatic reply: “I’m not a monkey, I’m Raina!”
15. Finally, my favorite vocabulary word I taught to Raina this weekend was “rambunctious.” As in, When Raina kicks and jumps on her big beach ball all over the basement, she can say, “I’m rambunctious.”
Krystal, Eric, Sam, Raina, and Roxane, thanks for hosting a great New Years weekend! And thanks for letting me share some of my memories with Owensboro, MICDS, and any other readers.
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