3 posts from January 2008

Their passive understanding of German has increased, Alexander especially.  Alexander loves to take away anything that is keeping me warm, such as blankets I might be using, my slippers, my socks...So one day he had taken my blanket and my slippers and carried them off.  A few minutes later I asked him, "Wo ist meine Decke? Es ist mir kalt!"  (Where's my blanket?  I'm cold!)  He stopped what he was doing, looked at me, then went into the toy room and came back a minute later with my blanket.  Alexander knew the word "Decke" because he likes to sleep with a blanket, and I always say, "Hier ist deine Decke" when I put him to bed.  But what impressed me about that was that it wasn't right away that I asked him where my blanket was.  He had to think and figure out what I was talking about and then go get my blanket for me.

They love the word "Hose" (pants) and every time I dress them, we chant "Hose! Hose! Hose!" and I have started saying what color they are too.  Alexander always seemed more in tune with the German, but today Christopher twice showed his understanding.  This morning he climbed up onto my lap, and I asked, "Willst du stillen?" (Do you want to nurse?) and he said, "Ja."  They also like to say "Bye!" when they are walking away from you, and so I started saying, "Tschues!" just a couple of days ago.  When I was putting on their sleepers last night, I was saying, "Tschues, Fuss!" (Bye, foot! it rhymes) as I put  their feet into the sleepers.  Today, Christopher was playing and walked away from me and I said, "Tschues!" and he said, "Bye!" so he obviously knows what it means.

Alexander showed that he understood "Socken" (socks, but pronounced with a "z" sound at the beginning so it doesn't sound the same) by pointing to the bin I keep their socks in when I said "Socken."

A list of words I am pretty sure they know:

Ball, Decke, Hausschuhe (slippers), Socken, Tschues, Kuss (kiss), ja, nein, Hose, stillen, possibly springen (jump)

And I did actually manage to read 2 books to them today auf Deutsch.  Normally, they make too much noise to hear me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpEJk6h5V1c

We got a new camera for Christmas that also has a video function.  I don't know why this is so dark on youtube, because it is not on the camera. They run around in circles like this every day! At the beginning, it is Christopher who notices that Robert has the camera and kind of shows off by holding out his arm and lifting up his leg. Then Alexander in the red shirt notices the camera and comes over and sticks his face up in it. Then they all run around like maniacs!

oh, and I have no idea why Robert named it 'An Inconvenient Truth" so don't ask!

Yesterday the girls and I watched the movie "Little Women" which they got for Christmas.  During the movie, Alexander started doing one of his favorite things - taking away anything that keeps me warm.  Honestly, if he sees me sitting in the living room with a blanket, he takes the blanket.  If he sees that I have my slippers on, he takes them off.  And then if I happen to have socks on as well, he takes those too.  He laughs the whole time.  Usually he starts it, but Christopher will gladly join in and help him.

So during Little Women, Alexander took my blanket, took my slippers, and then started pulling off my socks. 
The socks are especially fun, because he has to pull hard and then when they come off, he falls backwards.  Have I mentioned on here before that they both love falling?  So Christopher came and joined in, and for about a half hour I was putting my socks back on just so they could pull them off and fall backwards laughing.  Sometimes they did it simultaneously, sometimes they fell on top of each other, and they really had a good time.