Naomi: she speaks!

Naomi is learning how to talk at such a speed that by the time I resolve to write down her cute little words, she's already moved on to new ones. Agh! And now, in addition to saying her own words, she'll repeat everything we say to her, so it's impossible to know which words are hers or ours. I would ask her to slow down, but it's just so exciting!

Right in time for Halloween, she can say "Danding" (candy). There are Lifesaver mints in a bowl down in our breakfast room, and every morning after breakfast, she goes and grabs some to distribute. And she eats several.

She's thrilled with her badminton skills.

She has an amazing sense of when people are leaving, getting ready to leave, or even thinking of getting ready to leave. She'll say, "Bye," and wave. She says this when people are getting off the elevator, and she often adds, "Byebye, dai den" (byebye, zai jian).

She calls dogs "dodo," which is a great mix of English and Chinese.  She says "ni hao" and "ayi hao," and for both of them she really closes her mouth around the last "aooo." When she doesn't want me to do something, she'll either yell, "No!" or alternately what I'm realizing is "bu yao!" She learns a lot from her sweet older sister, Deh-deh. 

She can finally tell us, "Down," when she wants to get down from her highchair or stroller. If she's holding something and it's hers, she'll tell us, "Meimei de." (That's Chinese.) For a while she was saying, "Mine de" (English and Chinese).

She likes to push the stroller and push her shoes on. For both, she's happy to chime in with, "Push!" When we're sitting down and want to help her put on shoes or her jacket, or when she wants to sit in our laps, she turns around and then backs up into our laps. She'll usually start a foot or two away, but I've seen her turn around and back up from 5 feet away. We're trying to teach her to go, "Beep, beep, beep, beep." I'll let you know how that progress goes.
Penny's kind of forgetting to say "please" very much, so we're emphasizing it a lot in our house. I guess it's sinking in somewhere, because if Meimei wants something, she'll sometimes come up to me, arms outstretched, and say, "Peeeeeease."

The baps:

She loves applesauce (bappo). The other day we went apple picking out at an orchard, and now she likes to reach for the tomatoes on my tomato bush: "Bappo!"
She likes to wear backpacks: bap-bap.
She also likes to play with Dad's iPad: bap-ba.