Miyakos' Milestones

Miyako has made some milestones in the past couple of weeks and because I am not good on writing them down, I thought I would blog about them so as not to forget. She gave me her first big scare last week while we were in Kamakura by falling backwards down the stairs (about 7 stairs) and getting a slight bump in between her eyes and her first nosebleed. Let me tell you this...she did not fall down the stairs the rest of the trip. In fact, every time I mentioned the word "stairs" she would pat her head and start to make whimpering sounds. I think she learned her lesson the hard way and will only go down stairs crawling on her belly rather than trying to step one by one down like adults.

Miyako LOVES the beach. She has no fear of water. She thinks it is funny when salt water gets in her face. I still do not understand how she can enjoy this and not enjoy bath water getting in her face when I rinse the shampoo out of her hair, but nonetheless, she is a little beach bum. I am sure come winter time, she will transform into a little snow bunny for my ski loving husband.

Miyako now loves "Anpanman." Anpanman is a Japanese character and we have a small ball with his character on it. For the longest time she would point to the characters and ask me to say their names. Just a few days ago she looked at the ball and shouted "Anpanman!" Now every time she sees him out and about we hear "ANPANMAN!"

Her vocabulary is increasing each day. Common words we hear are the following: Nuno, water, toes, eye, Anpanman, book, milk, kagi (the Japanese word for key only it sounds like she is saying agi), woof woof, moo, baa, neigh, mama, dada, ball, bus, Nena, Nana and train. Some people have asked us if she is speaking in both languages. To that I would say no. I think she probably thinks the English word for key is actually "kagi." However, she does seem to understand Japanese. We have a great picture book that she enjoys looking at. When I ask her to point to the "boru" or "densha" she points to the ball and train respectively. When Kan or Nena speak to her in Japanese and tell her, for example, to go get her doll baby, she will understand and go get her doll baby. But whether or not her brain understands she is hearing two different languages, I am not sure. We will keep doing what we can to help her with both.