Harper is very in touch with her feelings. Yesterday, the two of us went over to the new house to meet the Blinds, Etc. staffperson who was going to measure and order our window treatments. We were playing and wasting time when Harper darted over to her favorite spot to play: the kitchen. She loves to open and close the doors, and pull out the drawers as well. The night before Daddy told Harper she couldn't play with the cabinets because she was getting a bit rough with them (i.e. trying to close a door when the drawer was extended). So when she ran over to play again, I stopped her and told her, "Daddy said we can't play with the cabinets, Harper." She shut the door she'd opened and had a saddish expression on her face. I paused and then asked, "How are you feeling?" Harper sighed and said, "Frustrated." I crouched down to her level then, and said, "Yes... do you feel frustrated because you want to play and DadaMama told you no?" Harper replied, "Yeah," and looked longingly at the cabinets. I then explained to her why Daddy had told her to stop the night before-- that she'd been playing too roughly, that she needed to be gentle with the new cabinets, and I modeled for her how to open and close them, how to extend the drawer and that it needed to be closed before trying to close the door. She watched and repeated what I'd done. I allowed her to play with them as long as she handled them gently. She, of course, did.

Harper can also tell you when she's feeling sad, confused, tired/sleepy, happy, scared, excited, and sometimes even lonely (like when my arms are full or I'm busy and she's wanting me to pick her up). I appreciate her ability to describe her emotional state like that and I encourage it by naming her feeling when she starts to get upset. This all began with a book we got from the library; I can't even remember the name of it now, but it named many different emotions and gave an example for each of why a person might feel that way. We read it many times, and began trying to make the faces for each emotion. Then, when Harper would get upset about something I would try to describe what she was feeling... "Oh, hon, you don't need to be sad. I think you're confused because..." or "Yes, you're feeling sad because she has your toy. Let's try playing with this instead..." or... perfect example!

As I was typing this, Harper was sitting in the big office chair and she tried to bounce in it. The table was behind it and it made an (unanticipated) noise. Harper said, "Harper bumped," with a sad/scared look on her face. I asked, "What did you bump?" She said, "I don't know. It makes Harper feel sad." I replied, "I think you bumped the table because it was behind the chair. Mama moved your chair so now you won't bump it. Mama fixed it. If you want to bounce again, it won't make that noise." Harper said, "Harper doesn't want to." I told her, "Ok. You don't have to, hon." Harper said, "Harper was scared." I said, "Yes, because it made a noise that surprised you. But you don't need to be scared because you're safe with Mama."

And then, a picture of an Asian baby came on the screen of her TV and she said, "It looks like Isaiah!" She's referring to our half Philipino baby friend, Ed and Erin's child. Harper is just constantly making unexpected connections.

Harper's 10 word sentence today (describing the image on her sippy cup at lunch):

The piggy is putting a ribbon on the big horsey.

After Harper said this, I happened to count it out. This is pretty typical however. Harper often says things that are still pretty funny to hear a little girl who isn't even two say. When the leappad she was playing with made the wrong sound, she said "Uh oh, try again, that was random."

In addition to her great grasp of language, Harper is pretty good with numbers too. She can count to 10 in English (actually she can count to 100+ in English), Spanish, French and German; she can, by sight, recognize up to four objects (or any combination of fingers up to 10); she knows which numbers are bigger or smaller than others; she has number conservation (if you tell her to count from 13, she will start 14, 15...). She can also subtract one from numbers (count backwards - if there are seven bites on her tray and we ask her how many will be left if she eats one, she knows it's six). Harper likes to count all the time. In addition to singing millions of songs, especially the ABC's, she will often just start counting things - cars, cows, tree, butterflies, anything she can see out the car window.

Harper is learning lots of flowers and plants. She recognizes and names all the crops between our house and her cousins' house in Strathmore (corn, walnuts, grapes, oranges, olives, pomegranate) and she knows lots of flowers and likes to point them out from the car window, during walks, or in books (agapanthas, jasmine, roses, daisies, zinnias, tulips, sunflowers, daffodils, poppies, lilies, morning glories...)

Harper is also loving the new house and New Baby (aka Baby Brother). In fact, when asked her favorite thing about the new house, Harper said, "Baby Brother will live here."

Needless to say, we are having fun.

That's all for the blog for now, but we have lots more that will come soon.
-DadaMama

New photos on the shutterfly site.