Time out for Mommy...

So the other day, Amélie, dad and mom were having dinner. Mommy was done with her plate of pasta, and to entice Amélie to eat a bit more, took a pasta from her place. That led to a huge growl of disapproval from Amélie with finger pointing and big 'no no no' screams from Mademoiselle!

To her rescue, dad said 'no no no mommy'... Facing such tough disapproval, mommy asked 'mommy time out?' Dad and Amélie agreed, and here you have mom on a time out, sitting on Amélie's time out bench... Once dad released mommy from her time out, mommy said 'sorry', dad said 'that's ok', and mommy and dad hugged before coming back to the table.

Amélie was very puzzled by this role reversal, and observed the whole scene with a strange look on her face. The little wheels seemed to be spinning in her head and she all of a sudden had that look of mischief on her face... When mommy came back to her chair, she first pointed at her pasta to entice mommy to take more pasta from her plate. But mommy said she learned her lesson and that she wouldn't take more pasta from Amélie's plate... Given that reaction, Amélie took a pasta and tried to give it to mommy to eat it, visibly so that she could send her mom back to time out... Didn't work, but boy did we all have a good laugh!

Amélie speaks

Amélie is understanding most things that we say, but also speaking quite a few things as well (mostly in English).

Sometimes she understands things too well, like in this exchange about sharing food:

Papai: Metade para o papai, metade para Amelie (half to daddy, half to Amelie)
Mimi: yeah, mine (pointing at both pieces)!
Papai: (let's repeat the lesson) Metade para o papai, metade para Amelie
Mimi: yeah, mine [and having had enough of this silly dialog reaches for both pieces!]

Another random one:
Coming back from daycare, we bumped into a bunny near the parking lot. We both encouraged Amélie to run after it, knowing that the bunny would unlikely let Amélie get too close... She obviously obliged and went for it, after some initial hesitation. But then the bunny got a little confused when it got closer to the cars and, in going back and forth in front of the car, Amélie actually touched it! Later tonight she told us the story a few times, especially once with mom just before going to sleep. Beaming with all her pride, she said "Mimi CATCH bunny!", while swinging her arm for effect with the word "catch"!

Boy was this bunny close to a Darwin Award...

2nd Birthday!

Today Amélie turned TWO! Her favorite phrase? Amélie BIG! Not because she realizes that today she is a year older than yesterday. She actually refers to herself as big because of her latest adventures at our local Science Museum... This will be the subject of another post though, as today it's all about the party that took place for Mademoiselle!!

Mom and dad went to her daycare for her party... Amélie and the other kids went crazy with flowers last week and really seemed to enjoy it. So mom got the idea that instead of a sugary cake, Amélie's party would include a craft activity with fresh flowers, glue, big sheets of paper, and, of course, plenty of stickers... Here are some highlights:

Posing with mom when the parents arrived at daycare:


Amélie really enjoyed the flowers:


The other kids also liked the flowers:


But the glue and stickers were the main highlight for most of the kids. Their favorite activities quickly became to glue stickers on papai's jacket... Outnumbered, he had to oblige:


Overall, everyone had a lot of fun!

New obsession...

The little one has a new obsession... After (or rather in addition to) shoes, Amélie is now really into bags... She loves carrying as many as she can around the house... You want to see how proud she gets? Here you go:

Winter afternoon...

Papai was putting on a silly show for us this afternoon.

Amélie started by cracking up, then laughed and said 'funny papa'! Of course, that was reinforcement enough for papai to reach new heights in silliness... Which in turn led to squeals of joy from his daughter.

I don't know who got the most exercise, papai for performing, or Amélie and I for laughing!

Table manners

Amélie is trying very hard to imitate us and display perfect spoon manners:



More practice needed, but l'important c'est de participer :)!

Visite from Tata Susu!

On n'a pas donné de nouvelles depuis bien longtemps... C'est qu'on a été bien occupés chez les Pessoa... On a tous passé quelques jours avec la grippe, et ensuite tata susu nous a fait le plaisir de venir nous voir!!!!

Qu'est-ce qu'on s'est bien amusés!

Notre chtite parle aussi beaucoup plus. Elle comprend très bien le français et le portuguais, mais elle ne parle que l'anglais... Aujourd'hui, sa phrase la plus mignonne a été: Amélie Happy!





On est happy avec toi aussi petite puce!