Quick Update

First of all, I overhead Ali asking her daddy several questions earlier this morning. One of which started with, "Dada, when you were Papa's age...." I didn't even listen to the rest as I thought it was so funny. She seemed to even catch herself and then start over with "Dada, when you were a baby... " This one ended with ".... did you go to school?" She comes up with the funniest things.

A few more Ali-isms as she cracks us all up and also amazes us sometimes. Like, the other day, she was looking through one of my design magazines and found a bathroom / home that she seemed to find very attractive. She asked me if we could buy it and I told her that you can't buy a bathroom, per se, but you could buy a home with a bathroom similar or design a bathroom the way you want. She then asked me if we could get a new house with a bathroom like the one in the mag. I was really busy so I just replied with a vague 'maybe'. She then said, "Ma, (this is how she often addresses me) maybe we can find a home with this bathroom and rent it or, if we have enough money, we can buy it" I was surprised my 4 year old knew the difference between rent and buy...

The other cute things that come out of her mouth are 'eleventeen' and instead of kitchen, she pronounces it 'chitchen'... love it!

So, I've been really neglectful to our blog lately. Part of the reason is life, work, travel and guests. We've had sooo many guests. Right now we have Colleen, who was pictured with my nephew below, Dani and Lucy. Dani is my brother's godfather's niece. Does that make sense? She's Australian and her and her Aussie friend, Lucy are traveling around Europe for about 6 months. You gotta love the Aussies and their love and desire for travel. They are both university graduates (one in accounting and one in law) and are really gracious, fun guests. Lucy even helped Mia with her French homework this morning!

Last week, I went to Cyprus with my two wonderful friends, Kim and Nicky. We escaped for 3 nights and had a fantastic 3 days of giggling, catching up and sun lounging. It was a belated birthday present which I adored every minute of...

The kids are all doing well and enjoying all the attention from our numerous visitors. The weather hasn't been too warm but like they say, 'april showers bring may flowers'.

Photos will be coming soon.

It's funny how parents often spend so much time with the first child with things like learning the alphabet, eating alone, going to the potty, reading, writing, tying shoes, etc.

Then, the third one, who gets very little one-on-one time picks it all up without much assistance. Ali, before she even hit 4, learned how to write her name. Okay, it was only A-L-I and not ALEXANDRA like she will need to write at school. But hey, I was excited! I recently told our pediatrician during her 4 year wellness check that she could write her name and she was really impressed.

First of all, I think Terence and Mia helped teach her to write A-L-I. Secondly, she loves picking up T and Mia's Horizon books (thanks to Nana) and other learning books and doing fun things like this....

Today's Funny Finds

Ali can entertain herself all day. She plays and talks to herself and is always busy, busy, busy. If she's not trying to clean something, she's taking care of her babies. She's also really into her iTouch and Leapster (small video game unit). It was actually Mia's but she's outgrown it so Ali's inherited it. She was playing with it this morning in our bed. When I went in later, this is what I found. I think she had more fun playing with the game cartridges then playing the actual games on the Leapster. Very funny...

Then there is Terence. He was supposed to be doing his homework this afternoon. I was cooking in the kitchen but then went downstairs to do something. When I returned, this is what I found. He has so much trouble concentrating for long lengths of time and ends up rolling all over the place. He loves sitting upside down and does it often on the couch while watching TV. The strong reflection is off his backpack that is on the floor underneath him.

Ali's New Haircut

We finally did it... We took Ali for her very first haircut. She is 3 1/2 years old and has never had one hair cut off her pretty little head. We decided to do a major cut and donate the 9 inches that were chopped off. She handled it sooo well. All of us were there to support her. I especially love how she held her daddy's hand while getting a shampoo.

It was a bit emotional for me but I adore her new haircut. She looks adorable with her big girl haircut. It'll make the hot summer months so much easier for her (and me without having to do all the braids and ponytails...)

Swimming Ali

Last week, May 13th (Wednesday), Ali's class at nursery invited all the parents, siblings, whomever to come and watch them swim. The school takes them every other week all year long for swimming lessons. It's helped Ali so much as she started developing a fear of the water from about the age of 2 years. I'm not sure what happened but when she was 1 1/2 she was great in the water, wore arm bands and swam all over by herself. I even showed her a video so she could see how well she did. She just laughed in disbelief. Anyhow, this year of swimming lessons has helped her so much. It'll make the summer in South Carolina so much more fun with her swimming along (or at least nearby instead of clinging onto my neck) with the rest of us! Here are some snaps and 3 videos of her classes swimming day. Curt even joined us as he was flying out to China in the afternoon so it was an extra special day. T and Mia were there as it was on a Wednesday and they have no school on Wednesdays (it's a French school thing).

Concentrating on her kicking with Brigi

My Baby is Growing Up!

This is Ali just this morning waiting by the door for her nursery school bus to pull up to the front door. What a service! Marcsi, the owner of the school, drives the bus and Ali is the first to get picked up around 8am. Marcsi is always full of energy and so happy when she arrives. She loves Ali and considers her family as Ali often spends the night over at Marcsi's with Marcsi's 22 year old daughter, Brigi. Brigi has been helping me with Ali since Ali was just 2 months old. Brigi has been Ali's teacher at nursery school for 2 straight years and they have both grown very close to each other.

I had to snap this photo this morning when I looked down and didn't see my baby girl anymore. What a big girl!!!


Yet, times like yesterday when I took her out of the bath and put her on my bed to dry off, reminded me that she still has her baby-like moments. She was so tired that she dozed off right away before I could even put on her pajamas...

Let's get Physical

Yesterday evening, after school, I took both the girls for their annual wellness checks with our favorite Chicago-raised pediatrician Dr. Kinga. It was a funny experience and energetic, entertaining, dramatic Mia was in full form. While, Ali was a bit more curious, unsure and shy.

Mia passed with flying colors and surprised us all with her 20/10 vision. She could read all the numbers on the chart - including the bottom line (below the 20/20 line) which seriously had me, the pediatrician and the nurse in giggles. They both explained that it is very rare to have such vision. So, I told Mia that she better be a pilot like Papa with vision like that!!! She was flattered and happy with the compliments.

Other tests (blood pressure, urine, etc) showed that she was in great form. Her height is now 129 cm and her weight is 28 kg. We are waiting until she hits 140cm to go back to either Legoland or EuroDisney as this is usually the height requirement for the more serious rollercoasters that T was introduced to about a year ago.

Ali also did quite well with a height of exactly 100cm and weight 18kg. Dr. Kinga marked them both on the charts and we learned their heights were in the 95th percentile and weights in the 90th. So they are in good proportion.

Ali's heart showed a murmur which I remember Dr Kinga pointing out when she was a baby. Just to be safe we went over to the cardiologist to get a better look. It turns out she has a 3mm opening between 2 of her heart's chambers. The ultrasound machine was incredible and had Ali, Mia and I entranced. Her heart was so beautiful and we could see all the valves pumping, the chambers, the entire thing so clearly. The 3 mm gap is not something we should worry about is what the cardio explained. For extra measure they hooked little Ali up to an EKG machine which I wish I could have captured on film but I didn't have my camera. She looked so cute and was so good at holding still on the table while they got what they needed. Mia finished the appointment with 2 very opposite comments: 1. Ali is so lucky! I wish they could look at my heart too. 2. She then said to the doctor (a very nice older lady who sounded like ZsaZsa Gabor but spoke Hungarian to the girls), "Thank you for looking at my little sister's heart". We all smiled as it was very sweet, sincere and not rehearsed at all.

The only difficult parts of our appointment was getting a peek into Ali's ears. She loves when I clean her ears with qtips but hates having a doctor look in or even take her temperature with the ear thermometer. She just covers them up and shakes her head no. We had to hold her to have a peek and I tried to reassure her that it didn't hurt at all. She still cried. I do remember once when she had an ear infection the other pediatrician hurt her by poking around in there. It was a while ago but she obviously remembers it and is a bit scarred by it. In time, she'll recover.

Oh, she also passed with flying colors on the hand-eye coordination tests. Especially her skill for drawing circles, squares, plus signs, etc. Kinga was very impressed and explained that these were part of the 4 year old's test but she often gives it to the 3 year olds to see if they can do it. Ali loves her drawing so it was nice to see that all her scribbling has enhanced her skill.

Lastly, we finished with a few vaccinations. This ended in big, big tears but not for long. They both were lucky to get a biscuit, sticker and balloon at the end of the trauma.

Sorry for the boring details but had to record for myself. Otherwise, I'd forget by next week.

My Almost 3 Year Old

On January 24th, my little baby is turning 3 years old. Am I ready for it? Sure, why not? Am I a bit sad? Yes, a little. They do grow up quickly. She's at an adorable age. I especially have enjoyed her 2nd year of life. It's when her personality really started to shine. Her humor became apparent, her communication skills started to soar and her memory just gets better and better everyday. She amazes us all the time. Today it amazed me when she blurted out a 4 syllable word, "Comfortable". She was fluffing up a pillow saying, "I'm going to get comfortable". Where did she learn how to say such a long word? When did her vocabulary start to blossom?

All 3 of our kids have been bilingual since the day they were born so sometimes their vocabulary seemed a bit slower than many of their unilingual peers. I don't remember it ever bothering me. I've always tried not to compare our kids to other kids (or each other). They are all unique in their own way.

Ali loves animals and seems to care a lot about all of ours. She nurtures all her baby dolls and mimics cleaning tasks - especially ironing - like a little mommy. She can easily play by herself, play rough with her big brother or play girlie games with her big sister. She's always had a huge appetite and tries almost all foods. Lately she's been procrastinating at the dinner table and either needs coercing or what we've learned works better is when we ignore her procrastinations and before long she's digging in. She absolutely loves her 'chips' and has been chewing gum for way too long. I remember Terence never had a piece of gum until he was about 5 years old. Ali, on the other hand, has been chewing gum since just before her 2nd birthday. The first few times she may have swallowed it but now she knows better. It may not make some of you feel better, but we only buy sugarfree...

Unlike her big sister, Mia, Ali's been quite fearful of swimming. When she was 1 1/2 (during the summer of 2007) she was a fish and swam solo with arm bands. I'd actually have to fib to other parents and say she was older than 1 year old as arm bands should not be used by kids under 3. We didn't use them as babysitters and never abandoned her but it was amazing to watch her swim at 1 year. Maybe too much time had passed during that winter and she forgot about her joy of water because during her 2nd year of life she feared swimming with or without arm bands and also got upset when water got in her eyes (even in the bath tub). She now gets upset when we wash her hair as she cannot stand water in her eyes. During the last 4 months she has only let Mia wash her hair. Except when Nana and Aunt Lisa were here - she also let them wash her hair.

Just tonight while she laid back to get her hair wet, she discovered floating in the bath. She's always pretended to swim in the bath but tonight she was actually floating on the top of the water without one part of her body touching either the bottom or the side. It was fantastic! She loved the feeling and just lay in the water like a floating angel. I had to take this one photo of her wild hair - which, by the way, has never had a pair of scissors near it!

Ali still says 'me' intead of 'I' like "Me go potty" or "Me want juice". She's slowly starting to change the latter to "May I please..." as she has started saying without a reminder just this weekend to my excitement.

She also loves telling a story and ending with "You remember?" except 'remember' comes out sounding more like 'wah-mem-bah'. I love it. She babbles all the time and half the time I can't pay attention as she is like a wind up toy... It's so funny. She normally makes perfect sense to us but she does mix in a lot of magyar (Hungarian) words. Most recently she's been saying 'Bukfenc' (pronounced 'booh-k-fence') and it's taken me about a month to figure out that this means 'somersault' in Hungarian. She'd often go and stand on her head when she was talking about 'bukfenc' but since she's still not proficient at somersaults it wasn't completely clear to me.

She loves her nursery school and likes being around other kids. She's extremely active and unlike the other two at her age, she cannot sit still for any kid show or movie. The 5 of us just went to see the movie Tale of Despereaux (in English) at the theater today and Ali just could not sit still. She moves around a lot. At some points she sort of wandered around the theater and danced a little bit even (she always dances whenever there's music). She moved between seats and even sat on Curt's lap for a while then my lap for a while.

She's not a smiley type of kid but she does love to laugh. Like her dad, she laughs the hardest at her own jokes. She has a great, infectious laugh that gets all of us laughing along.

Lately she's started being concerned about her appearance and has asked for a certain shirt or even skirt or dress. Skirts or dresses have never mattered to her much up until our recent trip away to Austria. Mia was sort of having a melt down about wanting to wear a skirt to dinner and so Ali also decided she needed to wear a skirt. I didn't even have a skirt for Ali but convinced Mia to lend her a denim one and we just pulled the elastic tight so she could wear Mia's 6x denim skirt to dinner. She was very happy. She also loves her rainboots and calls them her 'cow boots' as she thinks they are 'cowboy boots' like Mia has.

Every night Ali insists on getting her back and belly rubbed at bed time. Our routine at bedtime (after bath) is to brush teeth, empty the bladders (she's been fully out of nappies for almost 5 months now), read books and then good-nights. If I forget to rub Ali's back or belly, or if Curt does the book reading, Ali tiptoes out of her room and calls down to me, "Mama, you forget to rub my back". So I tell her that I'll be up in a minute and she shouts down "okay!" and pitter patters back into her room waiting patiently for me to arrive. We do the entire procedure of back and belly rubbing and scratching and almost always she's asleep within 5 minutes.

I still cannot believe that it was almost 3 years ago when Curt drove me to the hospital at about midnight. Not knowing if we were having a boy or girl, the anticipation was exciting. Actually, I wasn't thinking about it at all during those horrendous contractions while laying in the warm bathtub but once she arrived I didn't want to know anything but our little baby's gender. They handed her to me in a towel and I just loved her from the minute I saw her. Naturally I had to unwrap the towel and exam everything (first making sure she really was a girl) about her.

We were worried that she would never come as she was 2 weeks late and Dr Csermely, my ob/gyn, wanted to look into taking matters into his own hands. As much as I wanted my pregnancy to be over with, I wanted nature to take it's own course and didn't believe in interfering - especially if she and I were both healthy. So, we waited and we waited and we waited. Every day I received what seemed like hundreds of emails and text messages asking "Did you have the baby yet?" Curt stayed nearby as he was worried he wouldn't make it in time knowing how quickly I went into labor and how far our office was from the hospital.

We didn't expect for me to go into labor at night time as I went into labor in the afternoon with T and in the morning with Mia but they are all different. Our nanny rushed over to look after T and Mia (who were both asleep) while Curt raced me to the hospital. Again, pulling over for each contraction like we had to do in the past. We were so excited to welcome our perfect little girl, Alexandra Patricia Clements on January 24, 2006.

This is actually what I looked like 3 years ago (to the day)!

Ali Counting

As I've mentioned numerous times, Ali was counting and speaking Hungarian really well before our UK / US journey began. After 7 weeks speaking only English, she progressed leaps and bounds. Here she is counting in mid-Aug 2008 (2 years and almost 7 months of age) in the car in Virginia (sorry about the bumpiness).



Can you hear me fighting the giggles at the the last part?

Ali's Developments

I really have to find a way to get some conversations with Ali on video. She is incredible and developing so quickly! Since being in the UK and now the US for almost 6 weeks, her English has progressed rapidly. She is now very communicative and puts together sentences and is much happier as she is usually able to express herself to all of us. She's still shy (especially if a stranger strikes up a conversation and asks something like, 'what's your name?' or 'how old are you?') but that doesn't bother me. I'd much rather have a shy kid than one that is too chatty as I'd be afraid that she'd just go off with anyone. I love how Ali runs over to me, grabs my leg and often buries her face into me if someone even looks at her for too long!

As of this week, she has officially entered the WHY stage. I was not prepared and thought this was more in the age 3 category but c'est la vie. The 'why' questions are endless! I can't say anything to get her to stop with the 'why' follow up but that's okay. We'll survive.

As of this week, she's also officially dropped one of her most popular words: 'Hol?' This means 'where' in Hungarian and she used to (it still slips in occasionally) use it at the start of every question whether it was 'where', 'how' or 'when'. Today I just heard her say, "Where are the boats?" instead of "Hol a boats?" like she was saying last week. 5 weeks ago she was saying the entire sentence in Hungarian... It's going to take her a couple of weeks to get her mind back into Hungarian but I'm not worried at all. She'll return to Hungarian nursery school shortly after our return.

Her sentences are now up to about 6 or 7 words so we are really enjoying this time. Sometimes the words are in a different order but she always makes sense. And, we have proof that it's not just us understanding as we've had lots of friends and family (about 27 total) visiting us here at the beach and they all seem to understand her too. It's really fun to listen to her and we are always amazed when she says words that we didn't even know she was familiar with like 'helicopter' - however, she did call it a 'helicopter airplane' which was funny!

More about Ali's developments and the others soon. Must run and figure out dinner and finish a bit more online shopping.

Ali Update

Ali's speech is definitely improving but she is also having trouble pronouncing certain sounds in English. The two that I've most recently noticed was that she mixes up the 'K' sound with the 'T' sound. Some examples are she says 'Teira' rather than 'Keira' when addressing our little friend Keira. She also says 'Toszi' (pronounced more like toosie) rather than 'Koszi' which means thank you in Hungarian.

The other mix up she currently has is 'W' with 'F'. So, she says 'Falk' instead of 'Walk'. There was another 'W' word that she used earlier today but now I cannot remember. 'Falk' took us a while to work out. Oh, that's it! Work! When we talk about Mommy and / or Daddy going to work she repeats 'fork' but not like the kitchen utensil but rhyming with work so more like 'ferhk'.

She's obsessed with gum. She loves the stuff. She's been chewing it for a few months now. I know, I know... she's definitely too young and has definitely had a few mishaps by accidentally swallowing it. Now, she chews it without ever swallowing it. Of course, I only buy the sugar free stuff but she asks for gum every day. She cries if she doesn't have any. But, we have to put our foot down when she asks for gum before breakfast!

Just a Few Notes

Had to jot these down to remember.

Last night I was doing sit ups while the kids were watching the movie, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (I think this is the name. It's a funny movie in which Steve Martin plays a dad who is married with 12 kids). Ali must have thought I was trying to hold my head up so I could see the TV. Suddenly, she stuffed a pillow under my head while I was going up on a crunch. I came down on it and thought it was so sweet of her to be concerned about me.

Recently she has also learned how to push the stepping stool in our kitchen (always have one open for the kids to step on and help with cooking) up to the fridge / freezer. We have an American GE Profile which has an ice / water dispenser on the freezer door. She has figured out how to get herself a drink and does so often. The other night she brought all of us a drink of water. She's so overly careful about spilling that she now just fills the glasses up about 1/8th of the way. It's funny when you get a big (plastic) cup with about 2 sips of water only. Of course we all are very appreciative and say, "thank you Ali!"

On another note, today Terence had a big brother talk with Mia. I don't think he knew I was listening. It was really funny to hear him talking all grown up to her. He said to her, "Mia, I think there are 2 issues that you need to work on. 1. Cumi-ing (this is a Hungarian slang word for thumb sucking or a pacifier. it's pronounced 'tsoomi'. Mia still sucks her thumb *). and 2. Kissing Boys." He proceeded with, "Mia, I think you are addicted to both and you really need to stop as you are too old for cumi-ing and too young for kissing boys. I don't even kiss girls yet and I am 7." It was really adorable. I especially thought it was funny that he used the word 'addicted' as I just recently explained what this word meant. I thought he did well by using it in context...

* Note to Aunt Sally about Mia's cumi-ing. Terence and Mia both remember the deal that was made at the beach last summer. Mia and Aunt Sally made a deal that Mia would quit cumi-ing when Aunt Sally quit smoking. She and Terence are hoping that Aunt Sally makes it to the beach again this summer to see who won the deal!! hint, hint, nudge, nudge...

Kids are very excited that today was their last day of school for 1 1/2 weeks as they are on spring break!! 4 days until we leave for Disney Paris!!!

Update

I'm going to use this post to just write a brief update on each of the kids. I'd prefer to post photos of our recent ski trip but our desktop is again giving us problems. Yes, this is the new hard drive that I was bragging about in December. What on earth?! I'm still hopeful. Our IT dept has been working on it for 2 days so I'm expecting some great stuff!

Regardless, Ali is naturally changing the most every day. I was talking to a friend / colleague (Jon Harman) today and found myself feeling a bit sad when mentioning her upcoming 2nd birthday! Where does the time go? I still call her my baby. I remember when I was 20 my mom was still calling me her baby. I maybe the same!

She's an incredible kid. Funny, confident, social, self-sufficient, caring, etc. She still hits people on the back when coughing or sneezing. The other day while I was sitting on the sofa I sneezed. It took her about 3 minutes to climb up and get close enough to my back to give me a whack. It was a bit late but she was determined to help me out.

Just in the last week she's been obsessed with doing everything herself - without help. It's great but also frustrating as she cannot do everything herself. Mornings especially have been a bit of a struggle as she insists on trying to put on her own onsie, tights, etc. She shouts 'Mine!' It's not a clear 'mine' but more of a 'myn-g' sound. I try to help her - especially at times when she gets 2 legs in the same leg hole - but she refuses to let me. She does this when getting in and out of the car too. If you've been to visit you will know that my Land Rover is very tall and the floor of the backseat is not an easy climb. But she does it! She climbs all the way up into her car seat then screams 'Myn-g!' when I try to put on her seatbelt. She tries to do it herself. I've figured out that I need to allow at least 10-20 extra minutes for every task so she wears herself out and gives up trying. Then she's receptive to my help.

Her other newest thing is waving. She's known how to wave for a long time but she now waves at whatever makes her happy. Some examples are the bus at school and motorcycles. The bus that comes for some of the kids at the end of the day at the French school is a huge coach bus. It takes a load of kids to Budagyongy which is about 10 miles towards the river. I guess it's easier for a lot of parents / babysitters to pick up their kids. I'm going off on a tangent. It's a huge white bus and Ali loves it. She squeals when she sees it and stops (she cannot yet walk and wave) and waves. It's really funny. Everyone gets a kick out of watching her do this.

And yet another funny quirk she's developed is 2 kind of Hungarian expressions. Both are pretty hard to explain the meaning of. The first is something she picked up a few months ago. It is the word 'Nah'. It's said with a sort of sigh. I understand the meaning of it when listening to someone speak Hungarian but asked many Hungarians who are fluent English speakers for their translation. The closest English word is 'so'. An example of when she uses this word is after she's built something out of legos and she steps back and realizes she needs to add one more thing. It's usually upon finishing something or just about to finish something. Very funny... again. I think it's always funny when tiny little people imitate adult things.

The 2nd new word which is very new is 'Yay'. Not 'yeah' but 'yay'. I don't even know if this is a word - like 'nah' - but I'm trying to spell it the way it sounds. Now I'm trying to think about when she uses this. I think it's in place of 'oops'. She says it all the time.

The funniest part about her expressions is that she has so many unique words of her own. The other kids had a few at this age and also spoke what we call 'Hunglish' (mixing Hungarian and English words together) but she is mostly made up of her own lingo. She still calls birds 'nana', water 'fooh' , food 'nyum-nyum' and sometimes the dogs 'dum dum' (she may have gotten that from me). Don't get me wrong, she does know some real words like shoes, hat, Blue, nem (she says it in Hungarian rather than English), etc.

Last but not least, she's a huge help. She wants to help with everything. Setting the table, feeding the dogs, feeding the fish, picking up dirty clothes (I won't mention whose) and putting them in the hamper, etc. If you give her a damp cloth she will wipe down just about anything and everything. I think they all do that as I remember when Terence started doing it at this age and I thought it was so unique. Then, Mia did it too.

Oh, I almost forgot, Ali is desperately trying to learn how to count. She starts with her thumb for 1 like the Europeans and usually does it in Hungarian and gets to about 4. She's trying also to learn colors and says purple and blue (of course because of our dog's name being Blue) and green and red... Actually most but she doesn't always get them right. It's amazing how much she learns every day!

So much for my brief update on all 3 children. I will have to finish the others another time soon. It's 8pm and Curt just got home. He's still on his bike to and from work EVERY DAY! He's amazing! It's freezing and snowing and icy and he never misses a day. I've made one of his favorite meals: Coconut Chicken Curry with green beans and rice so I need to go receive my kiss! Dessert is zucchini bread which is another one of his favorites. I'm not always such a great wife but I have to brag while I can!

Ali's New Word

She finally said two words - 3 syllables - today. It was apple juice. She usually prefers calling an apple an 'alma' which is the Hungarian word. She calls all fruit 'alma'. Today Curt asked Terence and Mia if they would like apple juice, pinapple juice or pear juice. Ali said, with deep concentration, 'AAHHHpple djuice'. We were all very excited! She repeated it 3 times!

Ali's Newest Things

I wanted to take a few minutes to put down into words some of Ali's latest developments. First of all it is amazing to me that at 20 months of age she is already so nurturing. She has dollies (actually they are Mia's but Mia is not at all possessive) thay she likes to take care of. She covers them with blankets and feeds them. It goes a step further as I have noticed this last week since I've developed a cough. Every time I cough she pats my back. It is so funny and I will try to get it on video as it is so sweet. She also comforts Terence or Mia if they hurt themselves of if Mia is crying about something. She goes up and strokes their back trying to make them feel better. Terence who is rarely a huggy, kissy kid always puts up with Ali's kisses as she wants to pass out kisses often.

Her works are rather Hunglish - a mixture of Hungarian and English. She loves saying 'nem, nem, nem' which means 'no, no, no' in English. She calls Mickey a little made up word that is her version of Mickey. It sounds like 'Tsitsi'. She says 'Boo' for Blue which is pretty close. And often commands Blue to get the ball which sounds something like 'Boo! Bah!' Words that begin with 'B' seem to be easier for her as she also calls Terence the same nickname as Erika, our nanny, calls him, 'Boo-Boo'. It's confusing with when she actually is hurt as she also calls that a 'booboo' but the 'o' sound is a better different than when she calls for Terence. Other 'B' words are 'bahbah' for her bottle and 'baba' for her baby doll.

She's not really interested in making animal sounds other than fish. She looks at us like we have 3 heads when we go through the animal sounds.

She just crawled up on my lap so typing has become a huge challenge so I will finish this later.