Whistle while you work

We've been busy. J-F collected Helena from his mom's place and got her home just in time for my sister's visit. She was flying through town, so she spent Sunday night on our couch and Monday day hanging out with Helena (time enough for me to go to the dentist), and with me too.

In the afternoon we went for a stroll and stopped for lunch. The bread was great, according to Helena, and even better when dipped in the carrot & ginger soup. She tried mushrooms for the first time (from my chicken and pesto panini) and thought they were really funny, I think because of the texture and because they were sliced very thin.

Helena's play is advancing to a new level. The Alphabet Pal is no longer just for kicking — Helena seems to now realize that pressing each foot of this caterpillar produces a unique sound. Lego pieces are no longer for piling into and taking out of the drawer — they can be pressed together. And she seems to have figured out that the blocks that belong to her sorting castle don't have to gain entry through the drawbridge door exclusively — they sometimes fit though the cutout shapes in the side.

Vocabulary additions:

lala = lala (Polish for doll). Surprisingly, Helena also knows that her Teletubby lala (doll) is Po and not Laa-Laa.

googlygooglygoogly = cookie. Or maybe "cookie, cookie, cookie." Although most of the time it stills appears to mean nothing at all. It's not as if she gets a lot of cookies, only Farley's "instant cereal in biscuit form."

Then there's the whistling. She makes a tiny "o" shape with her mouth, and blows. Yesterday she produced a faint, but sustained, tone. I'm amazed. I didn't figure out whistling till I was well into my twenties, and I'm still not very good. And she's learned this from me!

Today marks the first true day of our return to normalcy and Helena doesn't seem very happy. Maybe she's tired after the last couple weeks (she is napping quite a bit). Maybe she's really not impressed with our regular daily life in our tiny apartment. Or maybe there's a tooth on the way. (What kind of excuses for her misery will I come up with after all her teeth are in?)

We'll have to do some more whistling.