percival

I've attempted to transcribe the words using SAMPA (ASCII phonetic alphabet), and I'm going to list them in five categories: words that sound the same in English and German, words that she has in both languages, words that she only has in English, words that she only has in German, and onomatopoetic words where she mainly mimicks sounds. The grand total is 40 at nearly 22 months, up from 24 at 18/19 months, counting words from the second category as two, and I'm sure I've forgotten some or that there are words she uses that I can't decipher. Very few two-word utterances as yet ...

German/English homophones
/bea/ "bear/Baer
/bUf/ "book/Buch
/be:bi/, /bebi/ - Baby, doll (in German)
/nana/ - fruit in general, bananas, oranges
/tEdE/ - teddy

/maUf/ - Maus (mouse)
/haUf/ - Haus, house
/fIS/, /wIS/ - fish, Fisch
/ke:/ - okay, mostly as "ja, okay" (whispered)

English and German equivalents
/nO/ /nOU/ - /naI/ no/nein; lately, it's almost solely /nO/
/dea/ - /da/ there/da

German only
/mama/ - Mum (Mama)
/baba/,/papa/ - Daddy (Papa), men in general
/tUtU/ - car (Auto)
/tUtU/ - down (runter)
/o:/ - up (hoch)
/mea/ - more (mehr)
/baj/ - Ball and anything round such as balloons
/bap2:/ - fruit puree (Frupue, Fruchtpueree; fallen out of use)
/ja/ - yes (ja)
/ajo:/ - hello (hallo)
/u:@/ - shoes (Schuhe - yes, it's the sign of an early fetish!)

/Ca:/ - Schal
/o:a/ - ear (Ohr)
/kO/ - head (Kopf)
/kabe/ - coffee (Kaffee)
/mIC/ - milk (Milch)
/kIga/ - tiger (Tiger)
/kakC@/ - cat, Katze
/ke:kC/ - Keks, biscuit
/ke:kC@s/ - Kekse (plural!!!!)
/tCe:/ - Zeh
/tu:/ - chair (Stuhl)

English only
/dow/ - doll (according to nursery)
/oU di:a/ - oh dear
/baI baI/ - bye-bye
/maI/ - probably in the sense of "mine", "I"

/gOgO/ - all gone
/doa/ - door
/mI/ - mittens, as featured in "Goodnight Moon", piperx, a firm favourite!
/ta/ - thank you

Onomatopoetic
"roar" - lion/Alex (Madagascar much?)
/U/ - woof (dog)

/maU/ - cat
/ba:ba:/ - sheep
/U-U/ - monkey

unclassified:

/dIC/ - up to the attic / on the bed

She is also much better at repeating actions to action songs ( has really come on in the last 2-3 weeks). In fact, she's started cueing me with gestures for songs that they sing at nursery, so nursery have kindly copied some of the song sheets they work with for me. Now I just need to transfer this zest for tunes to German songs ...

She will repeat the names of things you tell her. I suspect that I don't realise just how many English words she knows because we speak German, and I'm less accustomed to baby English than to baby German. I think I made out a "kImia" (come here) recently.

Her favourite pasttime is making noise, playing on her little keyboard, and pressing buttons that play songs.

Current Mood: bouncy

You may remember me blogging some time ago about our daughter's visit to her German paediatrician, where a potential eye problem was flagged up. I got a referral from the GP in mid-August after having had to wait two weeks for an appointment (hooray!) - I think my health visitor intervened to secure it for me.

The way they operate here in Edinburgh is that you get a pre-screening at an optician's first, then a follow-up at the Eye Pavilion. We had our pre-screening today, six weeks after the referral had gone out (hooray!). It all went very well. Our daughter was seen by an orthoptist first, then she got her drops, then, 30 minutes later, the optician checked her eyes. These clinics are held at branches of Browns Opticians in Edinburgh.

I was very impressed with both the optician and the orthoptist - both really friendly, really good with kids, very reassuring, very good "bedside manners". DD really enjoyed the orthoptist's vision tests, and barely uttered a whimper when the drops were put into her eyes. I had been fearing for the worst, remembering

rivka's experience with her little girl, but ... no. We were lucky this time. I don't know what did it; it was close to her nap time, as well.

To cut a long story short, she's absolutely fine. She'll need to have a follow-up to assess vision in each eye seperately, which is difficult to do when they are so small, but apart from that, nothing out of the ordinary. She will probably be sort of monitored, though, because my depth perception problems could, as

rivka pointed out, be hereditary, so they will watch her to see how things develop.

I am so relieved, and, as I already said, impressed by the kindness and the professionalism of the people who looked at her.

Current Mood: relieved

My husband has our daughter, so I have some ... time to myself! Yes! Time in which to write a parenting update.

First, I'd like to protocol today, so that I have a reminder of what life was like when she was 5.5 weeks old:

( life with a tiny baby )

Parenthood is so strange and wonderful. All the bits I dreaded are less bad than I thought. I've been spat, shat, weed and dribbled on, and I didn't mind a bit. I need to clean up after her because she can't do it herself, period. Being on duty 24/7 is much less daunting than I anticipated. The key ingredient here is a husband who will fix dinner when he gets home, look after baby while I do chores or relax, and massage my feet when I give her the last feed of the night. Girls, if you ever get married, that's the kind of man whose babies you want to have. But it also helps that she is just so fascinating. I stare at her a lot, interact with her, talk to her. She is very close to me and close to my heart. Finally, the crying. It is incredibly tiring to hear your child cry. Even so, from a source I can't quite fathom, I usually get enough strength to talk to her and reassure her that I am there for her. When I'm really stretched, I just sit with her and hold her. I figure that if she's already lost it, it won't help if I lose it, too. Poor wee soul is just starting to make sense of the world, after all.

Everything is filtered through the baby lens now. When I'm out and about, I have this sixth sense with which I scan the world around me for potential danger. I worry about things that might happen to her. I am more conscious of the environment, of the heritage I'll leave my daughter. I eat more healthily.

Oh, and routines? My girl doesn't have a routine, but she's predictable in other ways. When I'm out with her in the sling, she will sleep for 1.5-2 hours at a time if I leave her in it. If not in the sling, she'll sleep 1 hour max at home during the day. Her cycles now are eat-activity-eat-sleep, with some more activity-eat thrown in if she's snuffly or awake or cluster-feeding in the evening. When she gets hungry and I'm not at home, I grab the nearest convenient seat and whip out my breast. I hope that I have discreet breastfeeding sorted by now; being able to feed my girl wherever whenever in public is one of the greatest advantages of breastfeeding.

Current Mood: cheerful

sorry for not commenting much. Ruthie is eating every 60-90 minutes when I'm at home, except for the odd 2-3 hour nap. She's relatively good at night, when she goes down for 3-4 hours at a time. and the sling's not helping when her nappy is overflowing, she is ravenous, or just plain too hot. Did I mention that our living room faces south?

Even when we're out and about, she needs her food every 2-3 hours. So far, I've fed her in two bookstores, two Starbucks, during a lecture, on the bus, in church (twice; fortunately, they brought me communion), a baby massage class, a shopping mall food court, and the mother and baby room at John Lewis. She prefers to be upright for a while after a feed, and can get fretful now if she doesn't get enough stimulation. Definitely more of a handful now at four weeks than she was at one week of age, when she was still resting from the shock of the sunroof coming open.

I had a very small breakdown today; triggered by nothing, but I was howling for 30 minutes and throwing tupperware. diagnosis: exhaustion and dehydration. I had kept going just that bit too long and drunk less than a litre in the morning. BAD idea, not to be repeated. So I had a sandwich ( hummus on bread) and snoozed for half an hour with my daughter.

angua9 and

katinka31, right now, she has what can best be described as dark grey eyes, which is a very good omen in the Heyerverse.

As for me, I've been back in stretchy UK size 12, US size 8 jeans for a week, while my tops are a UK size 14/16 (US 10/12). That's pretty good going for a month post-partum, which I started at UK size 22 below stairs.

As for Katrina, I've decided how I'm going to help, which is through people I know. Glad to hear that

katiedarling from my F-list is safe. I'm following developments from a safe distance, hoping that people will be able to rebuild their lives. I used to spend my holidays on an island that was effectively a huge sand dune, so I know a little about the sheer power of the sea.

Current Mood: tired but coping well

This is a fly-by update - our miracle girl has become far more active and demanding, and it's difficult to get computer time.

( baby update )

Finally, thank you SO MUCH to

pinkfluffyllama,

actionreplay and

jessanndi for the lovely cards,

hildigunnur for the card and sweet gift, and

piperx for the fantastic card & pressies. I think that the toy will come into its own shortly :).

pinkfluffyllama, we're already using your box for storing cotton wool!

Current Mood: cheerful

Hi,

cynthia_black here, posting on behalf of

perceval. Just to let you all know that Ruth Iona arrived today, Monday 8th August 2005, at 9.40am. She weighed in at 3.55kg and is 56cm long.

Both parents and baby are doing well.

perceval's husband's text said the emotions were difficult to describe, but "incredible" comes quite close.

My heartfelt congratulations to the happy family :-)

Entries tagged with baby

UPDATE - Baby language blog

Optician visit

Longish parenthood update

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parenting update

Baby Announcement - It's a girl!!!

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