Friday, November 28, 2008

A Sunny Day It Wasn't!

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away...

That's the opening to the popular and long-lived children's television program "Sesame Street". This is a show I grew up on in the early 80's, one I attribute my love for language to. I believe "Sesame Street" is the reason I fell in love with the Spanish language, so when I heard Maria from "Sesame Street" would be in town, I was eager to see her!

I debated making the trek to see her because it was an awful weekend. I had gotten home from work and I was sleep-deprived. Working the graveyard shift meant that I'd probably already been up for about 24 hours. Working only weekends, I slept normally during the week, and had to switch gears two nights a week. On top of that, it was raining something awful! I think there were flash floods throughout the state that weekend.

Anyway, I made the decision to go out in that terrible weather with two toddlers. I found a parking space a couple of blocks from the book tents for a book fair and bravely made it to see one of my favorite television characters. It's funny, you'd think I'd be taking the girls to see someone from "Sesame Street". But, nope. It was all for me! :) I got an autograph for myself. Then I decided to purchase one of Maria's, whose real name is Sonia Manzano, children's books and have that signed for the girls.

So, although the day was not sunny, it was really nice to meet Ms. Manzano and the book we got, No Dogs Allowed!
, is a really nice addition to the kids' library. :) (In the picture above, you can see that Thevy's sleeve is wet, evidence of that rainy day. I even stepped into a huge puddle before entering that tent!)

Sothea Speaks

Sothea is getting to be such a big girl. She's one-and-a-half years old and her vocabulary is growing. She's a little advanced for her age since she has a big sister from whom to learn.

She says a lot of one-word phrases, but also many that are two-words and she knows a few three-syllable words. Sothea says, and the pronunciation may not be perfect, but I understand her: dog, Rocco, Thevy, sister, daddy, go away, stop, stop it, bless you, thank you, welcome (as in 'you're welcome'), banana, juice, bowl, eat, rice, cheese, pooted (lol), hi, bye, morning (as in 'good morning'), night-night, read, write, color, open, brush, teeth, eye, ear, nose, mouth, hurt, sorry...

Those are just some of the words I can think of. She also tries to sing. You can hear say "dumb dog" and "feed you" (from the movie "Annie"). She also says "I know, I know" when she tries to sing the "Psych" theme song (one of my favorite shows). She even goes "doot-doot-doot" imitating me when I just make sounds for the parts where I don't know the lyrics. hehe.

She's so cute and I can't believe how much she's growing!