funny little things

This morning Valerie was sniffling; Gabriel noticed, walked to the coffee table and picked up a tissue, then proceeded to attempt to wipe her nose. She did not appreciate his help (but I thought it was very sweet!)

Gabriel is starting to say actual words beyond "Mama" - this week he started saying "apf" for apple! And he finally started calling Terry Dada after calling him Mama for weeks (for the record, Valerie often calls me "the other Dada").

Valerie is really into Winnie the Pooh these days. Currently I'm Eeyore, Terry is Owl, Gabriel is Christopher Robin (or sometimes Roo), and she's Pooh. Shpresa is Kanga and Shpresa's son Samueli is Tigger. The room at the end of the hall where Terry gets his extra shut-eye in the mornings from 5-8 is Owl's Nest, and the middle bedroom where Gabriel now sleeps is Piglet's House. (Valerie has been sleeping in the extra bed in our room - it's a long story.)

Valerie saw an animated video clip of will-o-the-whisps and christened them "dancing lights." One day she was playing with plastic animals in a bowl of water, and I found her wiping drops of water off the bowl with her index finger and then tasting the water. She said with delight, "Panther's eating dancing lights!" (That was back when she was still Panther, not Pooh.) Now any time she sees drops of water she calls them dancing lights - even the occasional spray when using the toilet: "Mama wipe off the dancing lights!"

We're having Thanksgiving dinner with American and Albanian friends from church tomorrow night. I'm taking pumpkin muffins and rotisserie chicken. I was thinking of making chicken dumplings but I'm not sure about transporting hot liquid food to their house - might get messy.

Valerie's using more and more Shqip, like "ke ftoht" (you are cold).

I bought some finger paints for Valerie and the first afternoon she painted steadily for three and a half hours! She prefers to use a brush since she doesn't like getting her hands dirty. She loves mixing the goopy paints together, "racing" the brushes around in circles, hiding colors under other colors, dripping long thick strings of paint in swirls across other colors. She's practicing her letters with me some too. It takes focused concentration for me to supervise her, but it's fun to see her so into it.

More and more, Gabriel wants to do everything he sees Valerie doing. It's in turns funny, adorable, and heart-stoppingly scary, like when he tries to climb the furniture. These kids, they just keep GROWING!