Mo and I were chatting the other night in bed about the things Laila does that we just love, or make us laugh, or melts our hearts. She pays close attention to the world around her and often notices subtleties in her landscape that I quickly overlook. She is quick to engage those around her and is increasingly determined to do things by herself and in her own way. Her zeal for elephants has been replaced by her love of geckos. Her desire to explore the world through her mouth continues. We've been working on teaching her that not everything has to pass through her “mouth inspection” to be identified. Some of her least favorite oral encounters included--the bar of soap in the shower and large, crispy, dead beetles found on the outside patio. She loves animals, to be silly, run around, dance, play, explore the world around her, and swim. Some of the the sweetest moments with her are when she sings to herself, the serious conversations she has with us about her world, her belly laugh, chunky little arms wrapped around our necks giving us hugs topped off by kisses. She understands most of what we tell her and she is beginning to talk more and more. Her words include: agua, pez (fish), bop bop (for baba), mems (mom), bye, kaw (which is the last piece of hello in Thai. She says kaw, puts her hands together and bows her head in greeting) please, baby, gecko. Sign language: finished, milk, monkey, gorilla, fish, zebra, hippo, tired, be quiet, softly, play, friends, cat, eat, elephant, dance, more, tickle, please, thank you, bird, frog, butterfly, airplane, music. I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting. Here are some recent photos of our little girl.
