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February/March 2010
HOME FOR 16 MONTHS!

The past couple of months have flown by, and our family has been very busy. Maili has continued to grow and change at an astonishing rate, and we are very proud of her progress. She continues to amaze (and amuse) us with her language development, and while she has made a tremendous amount of progress, her speech is still a bit difficult for others to understand at times without one of us present to translate. Therefore, I have decided to devote this month’s post to “Maili-isms”, as we like to call them. These are the words and phrases that she uses on a regular basis, some of which are so darn cute that we don’t bother to correct her (shhh, Aunt Shari the speech therapist would be appalled.)

1. Awww MA’AM- translation: Oh, man! Commonly heard when something doesn’t go her way or when she drops or spills something

2. Dat AWESHOME COOL- translation: awesome cool! Exclamation heard frequently when something is, well, awesome cool.

3. I can’t DO yit. – translation: this is giving me difficulty and I need some help.

4. Dat taste WISHUS!-translation: This food is yummy!

5. PEE-yow! – translation: Her word for noisily passing gas. No idea if this is an actual Mandarin word or truly just a Maili-ism but she has always used it and it usually accompanies a giggle or two and the pointing of a finger at the alleged perpetrator, which is never her.

6. I MELL shumting!-translation: Usually follows pee-yow, whether or not an odor is present

7. No, Dat not MY did!- translation: Nope, wasn’t me- sometimes expressed as “No, I are NOT do dat!”

8. YOLA do yit. - translation: The dog did it. (Lola gets blamed quite frequently for the things no one else claims)

9. When someone says “OKEY-DOKEY” she quickly follows it with “FELL OFF THE WALL” . It took us quite awhile to figure out she was referring to HUMPTY DUMPTY on this one!

10. When asked where Dad works she will reply “KISS FOODS.” We couldn’t figure out why until we realized that our Southern roots were to blame- Around here we like to say “Give me some sugar” when asking for a kiss (Jamie works at SUGAR foods, get it?)

10. I YIKE it DAT one. –translation: that’s the one I want (and the more common “I NO yike it dat one”.)

And my very favorite of all: I LUD YOU YOTS and YOTS, MOMMY! (Why is it that she can make an L sound in some words and not others?? Go figure)

A few facts about Maili:
Her favorite hobby is GROCERY SHOPPING! She would rather go to the grocery store than to the park or the zoo, no kidding. She begs to stop at the grocery store every day and she gets so excited about it that we have been known to use it as a reward for good behavior. (shameless, I know.)She doesn’t want anything in particular when she gets there, it’s just the whole grocery shopping experience she craves, I guess.

Her favorite chore is LOADING THE DISHWASHER, and she will fight Holt for the privilege of loading AND unloading. He always starts by telling her that she’s not old enough yet to do both, but he always eventually caves in and lets her “do yit” as she says. Usually he offers to let her do both if she will give him her snack, which she gladly hands over for the privilege. Everybody wins.

She has the same odd speech substitutions that Holt had when he was younger-she substitutes a “y” sound for L and N at the beginning of words. Lola becomes Yola and “need” becomes “yeed”. This strikes us as funny because Holt’s catch phrase for the longest time was “ I YEED a YUDDER one” when he wanted more. Aunt Speech Therapist finally broke him of the habit when he was around 7, much to our dismay. No doubt Maili is her next victim, er target.

She is has some pretty strong opinions when it comes to her clothes matching- her shirt has to match her pants which have to match her socks and shoes and hairbow, and she will not come downstairs in the morning without carefully selecting each piece to coordinate with the others, even on weekends or when she is just hanging around the house. When she puts on pajamas, she will search out a matching hairbow and socks to go with them. Anyone who knows her mom might say that this is a learned behavior, but I swear she came to us like this! Her referral paperwork stated that she liked to put on beautiful clothes and look at herself in the mirror ...that would be an understatement. We have to stop her from changing clothes many times a day when she is at home. She has been known to change up to six times in one day. Complete outfits. Pants, shirt, socks, shoes, hairbow, everything. Always color coordinated perfectly all by herself. Mom would be proud of this if she didn’t have to spend so much time cleaning up after all of the costume changes. Because, you see, putting things back where they belong is Maili’s LEAST favorite chore.

This girl loves her pearls

Big brother Holt

Celebrating Chinese New Year

Smiley Maili

oops!

Always smiling



Upside down

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