Mine!

Drat!  I have to get a new camera soon!  The
iPhone camera does not do justice to these
pictures!  Still, she's a cutie!  Rawr!

Just a short entry today about Minsy's progress on the language front.  I have not had really high expectations for her language acquisition.  I have been just rolling with the flow, excited when she picks up a word here or there, but now worrying too much if she isn't saying very much.  Minsy does communicate very effectively.  I don't usually have many problems trying to understand what she wants to say to me.  Maybe that is because she is fairly demanding, and when she is communicating it is usually to ask for something or some sort of service.  Whatever it is, she gets her point across with little problem.   

As far as English communication goes, she is still not attempting much.  She can say Mama and Mommy, but these words don't necessarily mean me.  She sometimes uses this word for calling Daddy or Laney or some older person.  She also says JoJo, and that is the only name she uses at all.  She does love her JoJo.  Other than that she can say "No."  That's all we get so far.  It's fine.  We're not too worried yet.  She still has awhile before she'll need to have better language for school, and that'll come with time.  Right now I'm content to see that she is trying, and even more importantly, it is obvious that she is understanding many of the things we say to her.  She follows direction extremely well.  It is only a matter of time before her understanding of spoken language translates into her own use of the language while speaking.

Two new accomplishments on the communication front.  First of all, Laney taught Minsy to wave hello today.  That is a big thing.  She is awesome at waving goodbye, but hello just escaped her.  I don't think it made any sense why we would do this.  But today Laney did something so that this action clicked with Minsy, and she was waving hello to everyone.  Hurray!  The best part was she didn't just wave her hand.  She paired it up with a huge dimple-full smile.  Totally precious!

The next big accomplishment was her use of a new word -- "Mine!"  Or I should more accurately say, "MINE!!!!!!!!"  Oh, how she loves to use this word when playing with the other kids.  Everything is mine, whether it really belongs to her or not.  I'll admit that it is a bit cute to see her do this, and for awhile we were just giddy that she was using a brand new English word, but reality has set in, and I'm realizing that we're going to have to nip this habit in the bud before we have a little terror on our hands.  We have been working to help her see that everything is not MINE.  It doesn't always succeed.  She is also mastering the art of throwing tantrums.  But, again, her tantrum plans are a bit foiled because she is just too cute while she is wailing away, and it is hard for us to take her fits seriously.  But, with a little bit of direction and love we have found that she is quickly moving past her "Mine" obsession.  She really is a sweet little girl.  With just a bit of molding we are easily able to help her make some sense of the dynamics of our big, boisterous family.  

Hurray!  Now on to the next word.  I can't wait to see what it'll be!