growing baby

This morning, Mateo — holding a ball in his hand — proclaimed: “I see you, ball”.

However, do not be deceived by this apparent communication using a complete sentence. I am pretty sure that Mateo heard “I see you” from our neighbor Eloise, who’s turning 2 in about a week, and has perceived it as a single word. So really he’s just saying “iseeyou ball”, whatever that means to him.

In other news, we figure Mateo probably knows around a hundred words, plus (I think) all the letters of the (latin) alphabet, all the numbers (in Russian and Spanish), and often says things using two-word utterings. We also think that he just recently used his first verb, quiero. This is definitely an advance from his current attempt to communicate with things like “no, baby” when he wants to do something on his own, or “mama silla” (silla = chair in Spanish) when he wants to have Linda sit on a chair with him, or sit on Linda’s chair, or “mas синий” (mas = more in Spanish, синий = blue in Russian) for a nice multi-lingual request to get more of something that’s blue…

A few videos about Mateo and Linda making Challah.

http://qik.com/video/10960930

http://qik.com/video/10961519

http://qik.com/video/10961598

http://qik.com/video/10961749

The words, they are a-comin’.  Since the last post Mateo’s added the following words to his repertoire:

Ba (for ball)

Hoyo (Spanish for hole)

I (he recognizes the letter “I”)

Niña (girl in Spanish)

Odin (Russian for the number 1; he recognizes the shape, but not the concept yet)

Open

Pan (bread)

Up (& sometimes “down”)

Of course, Mateo doesn’t always use words appropriately.  For example, the other day we were on a walk and there was an older lady coming down the street in a wheelchair.  As soon as he saw her, Mateo pointed at her and said “baby! baby!”  He kept on pointing and saying “baby” as we walked up to her and beyond.  I guess wheelchair = stroller = baby.  Oh, Mateo…

Abue (Spanish nickname for grandmother)

Agua (Spanish for water)

Animal Noises (meow, moo, caw, woof, etc.)

Baba (shortened form of Russian for butterfly)

Baby (for babies or for computers)

Beebo (for belly-button)

Boom (to refer to grates and manhole covers)

Bubble

Hulu

Mama

Otro (Spanish for more/another)

Ow  (for hot/lukewarm and poky things)

Papa

Pee-pee

Yescho (Russian for more)

Recently whenever (or at least often when) we go on a walk Mateo will grab this push toy that Linda had gotten him and make us go on a walk with the toy. It’s in the shape of a lawnmower, is colorful and has a bunch of wooden balls inside which make little clanging noises as the toy is pushed. Passerby adore it. So do I.

Ilya and I visited five preschools in the quest for a good place for Mateo–where kids seemed happy, the teachers experienced and excited, and the facilities safe, clean and inviting.  Also, I wanted a school that was NAEYC certified, though Ilya didn’t care about that as much.  We ended up applying to two schools, both of which rejected Mateo for the coming year (or waitlisted him anyway, none of the preschools actually say “no”).

So, Ilya and I restarted the hunt.  The only preschools left to explore were half-day programs that started at 2 1/2 or 3 years old.  Of those, most were fine places, but not outstanding–not worth the inconvenience and additional expense of a half-day program.  One was truly excellent and I dropped off our application Thursday morning–only to find out a few hours later that Mateo had been accepted to Hill and Dale (he’d originally been waitlisted).

Ilya and I are thrilled that Mateo will be going to Hill and Dale!  It’s a great school and he’s such an adventurous, social boy that he should really enjoy preschool.  I’m a teensy bit sad, though, because I’ll miss my boy–no more surprise cuddles in the middle of grading–but this should work out really well for our family.  He’ll start in September–our little Mateo is growing up and going to school!

Yesterday, Mateo referred to Ilya as papa!!!!!!  In the morning, Mateo pointed Ilya out to me and whispered “papa”; then later in the afternoon, he was talking to abue and referred to Ilya as papa (again in a whisper).  So far he hasn’t called Ilya “papa” directly–I think he’s trying to keep his paternity a secret from Ilya, hee hee.  Or, he has a hard time transitioning from the unvoiced “p” to the voiced “a”–that’s Ilya’s theory.  (Try singing a sustained “p” sound versus an “a” sound to see the difference between unvoiced and voiced sounds.)

Mateo also is starting to say “noodle” (to mean pasta in general).  Sometimes it comes out noo-duh, but sometimes he says noo-noo.

Also, Mateo’s been hanging out a lot with Eloise (our neighbor’s daughter who’s three months older than Mateo).  The other day, he went to her front door and made the “more” sign (in baby sign language); then yesterday, both Ilya and I swear we heard Eloise say “Mateo.”  Yesterday, they traded leaves and twigs, played with bubbles on the patio and drew on the fridge (we have a big piece of paper on the fridge for this purpose). 

Ok, the little man just woke up, so off I go.  This is the first night he’s slept the whole night through in a week.  Hallelujah!

Just after I put Mateo in the bath tonight, I noticed a spider dangling less than an inch over his bathtime book (kept in the corner of the tub).  I thought Mateo might find the spider interesting so I pointed it out to him (while I’m not fond of most spiders, I have a soft spot for Daddy longlegs).  Mateo looked, nodded that he saw the spider, gripped my arm and tried to climb out of the tub.  I guess that was a scary spider!  Mateo refused to go back in the tub while the spider was in the corner, so I had to hold Mateo with one arm while I navigated the daddy longlegs onto a toilet paper roll with the other hand. After I put the toilet paper roll (complete with spider inside) in the corner of the bathroom, Mateo allowed himself to be re-lowered into the tub.  However, for the rest of the bath, he kept pointing to the corner where the spider had been and also to the corner where the spider now was (though all that was visible was the toilet paper roll).  I also sang him the itsy-bitsy spider several times to remind him that spiders are nice.  I actually translated the song into Spanish so that he would understand that the song related to the spider in the tub (which I’d been referring to by its Spanish name).  Mateo also kept occasionally gripping my arm during the bath as he looked for the spider and trying to climb out of the tub again.  This was by far the shortest bath he’s taken in a while.  Poor Mateo–and all because I thought he’d find the spider interesting–in fact, I thought I was going to need to keep him from trying to pet the spider!

Then during pre-bed storytime, we were reading about Miss Muffet which, unsurprisingly, had an illustration of a spider.  I told Mateo that was a spider and he pointed in the direction of the bathroom.  He’s got a good memory, this one.  We’ll see how tomorrow’s bathtime goes!

And, finally, a new word update: Mateo’s been saying “bubbles” since we got back from Oregon.  He’s a bubble addict!

We visited Melissa, Darren and Jacob in Oregon this past week–it was so incredibly fun in every way (well, except the plane travel part, which was at least ok).  Mateo and Jacob hit it off from the very beginning and now they’re best buds.  I was actually really surprised at how much they interacted given their age: they held hands, shared toys, played Ring Around the Rosy, took baths together, read books, chased each other around and around, shared a ginormous blueberry pancake and more!

Jacob called Mateo “Toe” (or sometimes “Tao”) which was also adorable.  Jacob was often calling for Toe, Toe, Toe!  It’s Mateo’s first nickname!

Mateo went to the pediatrician today and got measured: he’s 25 pounds (50th percentile), 31.25 inches tall (50th percentile) and his head measures 46.5 cm (forgot to get the percentile on that one).  He’s a healthy boy!  Now we just need to wean him from the bottle…