Beep beep!

So, Mama and Papa often say, "Beep, beep" when someone is in their way and they want to get around them. Kinda like in the car, you know? I don't think Mama realized they did it until a few weeks ago, I started saying it too. It makes them smile, which I like. What I don't understand, though, is when I said "Beep, beep" to a box on the weekend, it didn't move!

[Mama's note: True enough. On the weekend, there was a box in Meisje's way and she said, "Beep, beep, box!" to it, hoping that would make it move. And she did look a little perturbed that it didn't move!]

Meisje's new obsession

One word: Elmo.

I bought her an Elmo sticker book for the flight to NC for my best friend's wedding and it was a godsend, as it entertained her the whole time (and the whole flight back). Since then, however, "Elmo, Elmo, Elmo" is the first thing she asks for when she wakes up and yesterday was the first thing she asked for when she came inside from playing after Papa picked her up from day care.

She is definitely obsessed. It's quite cute, most of the time, expect for when she insists on bringing it to me and reading it immediately, regardless of whether I am cooking, brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, whatever!

Pasta bowl

[Mama's note: Meisje has discovered that she can pick up her bowl to finish whatever is in it (like Papa drinks the milk out of his cereal bowl). It's quite cute, although this video of her turning pasta sauce upside down on her head meant she went straight into the bath after dinner!]

Meisje and her shadow

[Mama's note: Last weekend we went to the zoo and Meisje discovered her shadow. This video doesn't do justice to just how cute she was, but it gives you a little flavor of the cuteness. She is saying, "March, march, march" as she is marching around - that's what they do at day care to go from one place to the next.]

Apples Apples Apples!

Last week at day care we talked about apples all the time, drew some apples, made apple muffins, rolled apples for fun, ate lots of apples, ate applesauce ... Apples Apples Apples! That's also the newest word I say that Mama and Papa understand. And this weekend, we had more fun with apples because we went on a trip to where there were some to pick off trees ... and music to listen to, and a hayride to go on, and a toy train to climb on, and hay piles to climb on ... so much fun!

Mama said to tell you she will post pictures soon.

Sentences :D

Meisje is sleeping peacefully in her bed, but I had to take the chance to tell you about her newest endeavor ... speaking in sentences. Yep, that's our little one. She comes home talking and talking and talking all the time. For a couple of weeks now, we suspected that she was speaking in two word sentences, although I was never quite sure. Now, I am.

Two clear sentences came out tonight: "My sit" as she pointed at the rocking chair in her bedroom and wanted to sit down.

And when I asked her where her Papa was and told her that he was in the kitchen, she pointed to the kitchen and said, "I see Poppy?" and walked in to see him.

SO CUTE. (and makes me so proud :)

This morning at day care

So, Mama has told some of you how I have been quite clingy when she drops me off at day care, crying and sad, and not wanting her to leave. Well, this morning, I decided it was okay to stay there. When Mama put me down to fill out that paper she does every morning, I walked right over to the table where all my friends were sitting eating breakfast and waited for Enna (M's Note: Jenna is on of her teachers, but Meisje calls her Enna") to get me a chair and some cereal. I looked over my shoulder once at Mama standing near the door - I wanted to make sure she saw me and saw how good I was being - and off she went. We have so much fun every day ... singing and playing and reading books and running around ... and I like my new friends. So, today, at least, it's okay for Mama to take me to day care.

(M's Note: Finally! This was the first morning since she first went there a month ago when she didn't scream and cry and hold onto my legs , not wanting me to leave! That makes it a lot easier on me and a much nicer start to my morning, too!)

Sigh

Mama's note: I sure miss the days when I was a graduate student and writing my dissertation - LOTS of free time to write on a blog. Okay, so I ONLY miss the free time, I don't miss the stress, the work, and the wondering if I was ever going to finish. But every time I log on to this site and realize it has been WEEKS since I wrote or gave Meisje time to write, I feel SOOOO guilty.

Sigh.

I'm here now. I should be folding laundry. Actually, I should probably be sleeping.

New words for Meisje: Bubbles, outside (which means she wants to go play in her sandbox, most likely), please (which comes out as peaaas).

She actually says hi on the phone now (talked to her Oma today), but doesn't stick around to hear anything in response.

Her new day care is going really well. She is learning so much (like how to use other words, such as "No" and "Mine" :P). Seriously, though, she seems to be having a lot of fun: dancing, singing, reading books, doing art projects, going on walks, and playing with her new friends. I am VERY happy with the change and feel very happy having her there.

We're off on a big trip this week ... off to my best friend's wedding. Meisje and I fly down on Wednesday and Papa follows on Thursday. We'll see how the flight goes with only me to keep her occupied. Meme and Grandpa are really looking forward to our visit, as are Aunt and Uncle, and cousins). I am looking forward to a couple days off from work (already, and the semester just started!) and am so excited for the wedding! Hope the hurricanes stay away!

Off to take Amish friendship bread out of the oven, make my lunch, and go to bed. Hopefully Meisje will write again soon.

My new day care

I really like my new day care. They feed me a lot of good food, we sing songs, we dance, we play outside, we get to play with paint and this squishy stuff (M's N: play-doh) that my teacher keeps telling me not to eat. We talked about snakes last week ... they go "hisssssssssssssssssssss". I come home so tired, though. Mama and Papa want me to go to bed at my normal time, but I just can't make it that long. Mama says I'll get used to it and not be so tired.

The only bad thing is that my mouth hurts again. :( Mama says my eyes are coming in. But I have eyes and they aren't in my mouth, so I don't understand (M's N: eyeteeth - the hard ones that take a long time to come in, from what I hear). I do know it hurts :(

Today we went to play in the water with my friends ... we saw ducks and fish and fed them bread (although I wanted to eat it, I couldn't understand why we were giving away good bread). They were funny. I tried to catch them, but they were too fast for me. I love playing in the water! Such fun!

One Month Later - Mama's note

Oh my goodness. So, I set Sofie up with her own blog to make things easier and make more posts. That lasted for what, a month, maybe two? I noticed that the last post I made was July 13 ... a month ago!

Lots have been happening. My parents and Meisje's cousin have been visiting this last week (got here on Thursday and leave tomorrow). I was out of town last week for two nights; my first away from her. She starts a new day care tomorrow and she and I have visited there the last two days for a couple hours each day.

She's talking a blue streak ... learning new words, and starting to string them together into short short sentences. She is walking walking walking. She is much more opinionated about all sorts of things. And in the last three weeks or so, four molars have come in. Such a growing girl!

As soon as I can I will get more pictures up here and I will try my best to encourage Meisje to write more herself.

For now, I'm off to bed ... tired tired tired! We will update you regarding her new day care as soon as we can, too.

New fun tool

From Mama: I was just introduced to a fun tool called Wordle. You can enter any block of text or a web address and it creates a word picture of the words used on the site or in the text - with ones used to most being bigger, etc. Check out the wordle of this site here.

New words :D

From Mama: Meisje is sleeping, albeit not very soundly - that molar is still really bothering her - but I thought I'd update you with her new words.

This weekend she started saying "shoes" consistently as she tried to take them off (and often succeeded). As we were walking to the water park yesterday, she said "airplane" several times as they flew overheard (every walk we took all spring when airplanes would pass over, I would draw her attention to the airplane, say airplane, and then make the sign for airplane - she does the sign, too :) - it sounds like "airpane". And this afternoon, she was playing, rifling through one of her boxes of toys, and could identify the balls she found as "Bas".

Up, which I mentioned before, is now a favorite, although it comes out more as "Uppa" and she also uses it when she wants to go from Papa's arms to mine and when she wants down. :) So we will still work on that one!

Off to bed for me ... she's been quite restless the last few nights, so I fully expect to be checking on her often tonight.

my mouth hurts :(

Mama says I am growing some new teeth and she says she can see them, too, but all I know is my mouth hurts :( A LOT.

[M's note: Yep. She's growing her molars - at least one - and I've heard that they are some of the most painful ones. :( Poor thing needs a lot of distraction (and some pain medicine) to keep her mind off her discomfort. And there are a lot of them to come in, so I expect this will be a long, slow process. We just give her as much love and attention as we can and hope that it gets easier with time.]

Summer

I really love this summer thing. Mama seems to like it, too. She's always asking if I want to go for a walk or go play outside. And she cooks outside a lot, too.

What I love the most is playing in the water! So much fun to crawl in the water and laugh and splash!

[M's Note: Meisje LOVES the water. When we went to the water park this weekend, she showed no fear. She crawled right into the zero depth entry section and kept on crawling. We had to continually turn her around and get her to crawl back to the edge of the pool or she would have crawled out into the deep end if she could. They also have these bubblers - basically fountains that shoot straight up, like what you see in some city parks, and she crawled right up to them, sticking her hands and sometimes her head in, without any fear at all!

There's a new poll on the left - Meisje wants to know what your favorite season is.]

Oh, Yeah!

Mama's record of a conversation with Meisje:

Mama: We're going for a walk. Let's get our shoes and get ready.

Meisje: Oh, yeah!

Mama: Are you ready? Do you want to go for a walk?

Meisje: Oh, yeah!

I wish I could record it - she sounds so cute - with the correct inflection and everything. So she has moved from saying "YAAAAAAAAAAAA" to saying "Oh, Yeah" - very distinct difference, actually. She just came home doing it one day last week.

Up-date

I feel much better now. Went back to play with the kids this week and had lots of fun. Mama said she and Papa went back to work. Work doesn't sound like much fun. I bet they had rather play with me!!! They left me last night with some girl named Jessica ... Mama and Papa went out to eat. Don't know why ... there's all this good chicken, peas, potatoes, broccoli, cheese, and milk here. But seems like Mama wanted some special fish thing ... whatever! Jessica and I had fun, though. She read one of my favorite books over and over and over again!

Today we spent the morning at the ZOO!!!! with friends and their mamas. My favorite part was sitting in the big sand box playing until I had a little taste of the sand and Mama took me out :( My other favorite part was the big fountain. Mama ran around with me in the fountain and we got all wet!!!! I laughed and laughed and laughed some more! We have new bears at our zoo, too ... they are cool ... but I wanted to touch them and play with them like I play with the bears in my room, but Mama said I couldn't. Oh well!

Mama says we're going to play in the water again tomorrow! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[M: Yaaa is Meisje's new word, and she uses it correctly. I suspect she learned it at daycare. This weekend we start swimming/water play at the local water park. They have a program for the little ones where you pay a very small fee and get to come in and play an hour before the park opens. That way the little ones get used to the water. We signed up for Saturday and Sunday mornings for the rest of the summer. I think she'll love it!]

Whoa, Speed Racer!

I have gotten really good at crawling really fast. Mama and Papa play like they are going to catch me and I crawl and crawl and crawl as fast as I can, laughing REALLY loud the whole way. Such fun!

[M's N: Of course, I never manage to get this on video, but she is awfully cute.]

Polls

Meisje likes finding out more about her audience. So each week (or so), she will post a new poll on the left of the page. Last week she found out that the favorite vegetable of 2 people was sweet potatoes and 1 person chose carrots. This week, she wants to know what you think about the playground. Her own personal favorite is the swing. Although the slide comes in a close second.

Meisje is sick, indeed

From Mama: Yep. She has it. Poor baby. At least she has a mild case of hand, foot, and mouth and the doctor thinks it should be gone in the next 3 days. Called day care this morning and another child there has it too. And those parents sent her sibling to day care anyway. I don't agree with that. I think there's a high likelihood that if one child gets it, the sibling will as well, and all I can imagine is that other child infecting everyone else at day care. So, it's probably good that Sofie will be home with Papa and me until the rash goes away (at least). I will have the morning shift today and tomorrow, but my new summer class starts this afternoon, so Papa will come home from work and take the afternoon shift.

The other concern is that Meisje has lots of fluid in both of her ears, and although they aren't infected, he wants us to keep an eye on her for signs of an ear infection as well.

... but I still had fun today!

Papa put a seat on his bike just for me and we went for a ride down our street. I loved it!!!!!!!! So much fun! It's just like when we were at Oma and Opa's and I rode the bike the whole time (but Papa doesn't have a bell for me to ring - it is a lot of fun to ring ring ring the bell and wave to everyone who looks).

I'm sick :( ...

I was hot and unhappy Friday ... all day [M's note: fever of 101 all day long :(]. Stayed home with Mama and tried to rest and soak up all of her kisses. I felt a lot better yesterday, but today I started getting this bumpy rash and I was a little unhappy, too. Hope I feel better soon ... maybe I'll be home with Mama and Papa tomorrow.

[M's N: We're going to head off to the doc first thing tomorrow. A friend's child has hand, foot and mouth disease (not hoof and mouth!) and we're a bit concerned she might have that. Hopefully it isn't anything serious. Poor baby ... she's had a rough first year. We'll keep you posted.]

I'm typing this one

fdf chjhjjjj m mnmjnh h4bbbbbbbbbbbbbb6bbb dbdbdbfgfbnn0ree4sbnreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeebbbbbbbbbbbbbb

[Note from Mama: And pushing lots of other buttons along the way!] bdsbc2ars3z

Walking walking walking

When Papa picked me up yesterday I was showing off my walking skills to all the other kids. I took 4 or 5 steps all on my own! Mama and Papa tried to get me to walk some more at home last night but I was sooooo sleepy and didn't want to. I do manage to walk up and down the hallway while holding onto the wall, though. I still like this walking thing, but crawling is quicker!

These feet are made for walking

This walking thing is cool ... not only can I get kisses and clapping when I do it, but I can also take toys with me when I go across the room. I still don't really like it though. It gets a bit scary if I get more than two or three steps past Mama or someone else. But I'll try it out some more, I think.

[Note from Mama: Friday we were at friends' house for dinner and we tried to get Meisje to walk without holding on. She actually left our friend's arms and took three steps to me ... then did the same again. Twice was enough. But Papa and I tried again yesterday and she took a couple more steps. Before we know it, she's going to be walking all over the place!]

More kisses for me!

I was standing up this morning all by myself [Mama's note: Meisje's been doing this for longer and longer periods of time since our trip to the NL], and I picked up my foot and took a little step forward ... without holding on, all by myself! Mama, as I planned, picked me up and gave me more kisses and told me what a good girl I was! I did the same thing for Papa earlier in the week and he told me Mama was sad she didn't get to see it. So I thought I'd show her (and get kisses ... which I like almost as much as I like cheerios!).

UP

I said a new word last night! At least, I said a new word that Mama and Papa understood. I talk all the time and they don't seem to understand what I am saying. But last night, I was standing by Mama, holding my hands up, and she said what she always says, "Do you want up?" I said "up" and she got all happy about it and gave me a kiss :D I like it when she gives me kisses but I don't understand why saying up matters ... I mean, it's clear what I want. But, okay, if saying up gets me kisses, then I'll say up.

[Note from Mama: Meisje's vocabulary (in order of first being said, if I remember correctly) is: Mama, Duck, bye-bye, this, Papa, Nan (her daycare provider), uh-oh, all gone, dag (bye in Dutch), and now up.]

Home with Mama today - she let me watch this funny song.

Teeth

Mama tells me that these things in my mouth (that's what she calls it) that keep popping up are teeth. Whatever. All I know is that I am glad I am getting more of them so I can defend myself.

Yep. A boy at this place I go during the daytime when Mama and Papa go to work used his teeth on me! I'm not a cheerio or a cookie! Yummmm .... cheerios ... cookies ... I'm hungry!

[Note from Mama: Not too bad of a bite, but I sure was unhappy! He bit her on her jaw, too ... an unlikely spot, if you ask me.]

Hoi!

Message from Mama:

Meisje is always very curious about what I am doing when I sit down at the computer - and although we've found a few Nijntje videos for her to watch, there hasn't really been that much of interest for her at the computer. But I decided that instead of trying to speak for her, updating her website on babyhomepages (which we have to pay for, by the way), always lamenting that I don't have time to upload pictures and tell stories about what she does, I would give her some time every day (or whenever she feels like it) to write in her own blog.

So, welcome to Meisje's Reisje ... her blog to write about her own journey. It's great that blogger has the capability to translate her thoughts and her own special language into text that all of you can understand.

Please write back and let us know what's going on in your part of the world and if you have any specific questions for Meisje.