Love the Language.

My child raising years were filled with my children playing with GI Joe's. I found it so funny that while looking for something in a cabinet, I threw a ziploc bag on the kitchen table filled with some of Matt's old small GI Joe's and when I turned around Anya had them out on the table and was checking them out. She must have played with them for at least 20 minutes, probably 30 and she was just mostly posing them and lining them up. I just cracked up. A true Nordquist she is. Why are they facing down? A firing squad maybe? On second glance I think she had them spying on bad guys.

Valentine's Day. 

I spied out my friend's blog and how she whipped together beautiful last minute decorations for the kids. I went to a new client's home yesterday and besides the wonderfully decorated round table inside covered with Valentine's Day cards, a balloon bouquet and the like, even the plants outside were decorated with wired trim that was shiny red and full of hearts. I used to do up the house for all the holidays for the kids and loved making any holiday special. Well, I guess I am just old and plain worn out :(  

I did get Anya a little candy box with Snoopy on the front as well as a bargain shirt for $3 that is purple plaid and studded with rhinestones (very Russian indeed) and had placed them on the island the night before so I'd remember to decorate. I woke up that morning and after a few minutes of Anya chatting at me (having planned on getting up before Anya to decorate her chair), I thought, "AHHHHH! It's Valentine's Day and I haven't prepared anything."

I headed out to the kitchen with Anya and told her "Happy Valentine's Day" as I handed her the unwrapped shirt and candy. I also grabbed the package of balloons I bought and blew a few up quickly and tossed three on the counter to her delight. I guess if you don't even know the difference, it's all exciting.

As you may have noticed, I love language. So, I really enjoy watching Anya dissect it all and figure it out. Here are a few of her recent musings:

She doesn't say "your" in Russian anymore, but not in English either, so she uses "ya" which is me/I in Russian. I've called her Miss Miss a few times and she quipped back the other day,

"I'm not ya Miss Miss"

Tonight I called her a silly goose and she responded with,

"I'm not ya gloose."

Since getting her hair cut, everything 

"smells good". 

This phrase is used for any of the five senses and "smells bad" is indicated by saying "smells good", making a bad face and waving your hand under your nose.

When in a crowd of adults that call us 

Monica and Dave, 

Anya will slip into that too. After all, she did meet us with those names.

When Anya wants you to go get something or go into another room or something like that, she says, while waving you away, 

"Come on...go ahead".

The way she says it is too funny and very firm as well.

Tonight I suggested wearing pj pants instead of shorts since it's colder right now. I asked which ones she wanted and she said, 

"pengoon".

I wasn't sure what she wanted and she told me "blue". I realized that she was talking about her "penguin" pjs.

I am also amazed that Anya sits still and listens to me read a chapter at a time of The Chronicles of Narnia. I chose to read that since she LOVES the movie and is very familiar with the characters and what is going on in the story. I guess she is just soaking in the language.

Today a friend came over and taught Anya to draw in perspective, and she figured out how to draw a cube. She was best just doing it herself after being shown. She wasn't thrilled with listening to too much instruction. That's so Anya.

Later, she was a bit bored and some of her handwriting papers were out on the table, where I had written her name, address, and phone number to copy. I off handedley suggested, "Why don't you memorize your telephone number?"  I figured it could just be handy someday should we ever get separated. She finally admits she has the same last name as us and we feel that is helpful too. We dialed the number from my cell so she could see the home phone ring and her eyes lit up. Within about 20 minutes and much help from Scott, she did it! Area code and all!!

Off to the Santa Barbara Zoo tomorrow!

~Monica