.
Uh, no nanks. I weawwy don't want to sleep with that Wild Thing. I would wake up in the night and go "aaaaaah!"She then sorted them into the acceptable ones (snoopy, a bunny, and a bear) and the unacceptable ones (the wild thing and "const void", a most bizarre-looking thing some students once gave me). I was curious to see if she knew Snoopy's name, so I asked her who he was. She thought for a second and then replied "Charlie Brown", which I thought was quite interesting. When I pointed out that his name was Snoopy, she readily agreed; I would guess she had just forgotten his name.
Halloween -- Halloween sometimes -- sometimes merry-go-round -- merry-go-roundToday I was in a store with Hayley. She found a stuffed dinosaur that she wanted, and I told her I didn't want to get it for her; I didn't think it was worth it. I suggested that we get one at a nature store or whatever. She told me that Kathy had told her she could have it (which turned out to be true, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it at the time). So I told her that the next time she came to this store with Kathy, she could get it. She was upset, but more sad than angry; she told me she was sad because she wasn't going to be with the dinosaur tonight. She then went over to the dinosaur and said:
H: [sad voice] I'm sorry I can't take you home today, but when I come back with Mommy I can det [get] you. H: [as dinosaur] That's ok. I want to stay here tonight. H: [to me, more happily] De dinosaur said he wanted to stay here tonight! D: Ah, maybe he has friends here he wants to be with. H: Yeah. [I finished getting what I needed and paid for it, then as we were leaving:] H: Wait! I got to tell [ask] de dinosaur [if] it's otay I don't get him today! D: No, hon, you can get him next time. [heads for the door] H: [wails] No, no. D: [sigh] ok. Go tell him then. H: I need you to tell me which... which... D: aisle? Ok. [we trog back to the aisle with the dinosaurs] H: Dinosaur, is it otay I don't get you today? H: [listens to dinosaur, then nods, satisfied] He says it's otay.
On the way back from daycare today, Hayley told me that Barney was her best friend. Her best "cwoff [cloth]" friend, that is. I asked her who her best friend at daycare was.
H: Gweer [Greer]... and Jesse. D: Jesse? I don't think I know Jesse. H: He's vewwy quiet. You have to know him. D: Ah, you have to get to know him to appreciate him? H: Yeah. To appwe... appweciate him.
Here is her rendition of the first page of "The Three Little Pigs":
You're too big to yive here any more, so go and build your houses, she said. Go and build your houses, said de mother. But make sure de woof doesn't catch you!
It is interesting that she knows that "she said" and "said the mother" are interchangeable, and is some indication that she is remembering the meaning rather than the words. Another thing I noticed is that she sometimes changes things that are presumably meaningless to her into meaningful things; for example, "by the hair of my chinny chin chin" becomes "by my hairy chin"
After I had read her the three little pigs a few times, she looked at me:
H: What is our house made of? [Oops --- we live in a wooden house :-)] D: Umm, well, some of the house is made with bricks. H: It's made of bwicks, right? D: Umm, yes, yes.
When I picked Hayley up from daycare today they were watching the Lion King. Hayley came out of the area where she was, and brushing me aside with a firm "wait", explained to one of the teachers: "I'm afwaid I can't watch the end of the Yion King, cuz my father is here."
I committed a most grievous sin the other day --- I forgot Barney at daycare. When it was bedtime, we searched high and low, but couldn't find him. Hayley was devastated.
H: Barney will be all awone! M&D: No, no, there are lots of other toys there. H: But he won't have my bwankie! M&D: Well, he can use the other blanket that you leave at daycare. H: How will he know where to find it? M&D: Oh, he'll find it easily.This went on for some time, but eventually we persuaded her that it would be ok, and she went to sleep; the next day she got her Barney back again.
We were looking for the crayons that can be used on a plastic drawing sheet.
D: Which crayons is it... These? H: No. D: So, where are these crayons? D: Or we could just draw on paper if you like. H: How do you draw on paper? D: Paper... Paper is what you normally draw on. H: I want draw on dat [plastic sheet]. D: Sure, but we have to find the crayons that go with it. H: Can you pwease? D: Well, I don't even know what they look like, hon. H: Dey're like, dey're like nitz. [shows me a pink crayon] D: They're pink? H: yeah. [...] H: Oh, so... look! H: Yet's yook at nitz. [not sure what she was looking at] H: I'm helping you. D: Yes, you are, very much. H: Dad, where could dey be? [loses interest] H: Dad, can I pway wid nitz thing for now? [Picks up the bumble ball] D: Sure, but we may need to change the batteries. H: Oh. De batteries died. Let's go down and change the batteries now. D: That sounds like a good idea.
Hayley's best friend at the moment is a little girl called Greer; when they meet, they immediately start to tickle each other. Greer is, I think, about a year older than Hayley --- asking Hayley about ages is not at all productive :-)
vocabulary:
roof -- roof drawer -- dwawer door -- door hairy -- hairy fire -- fire hammered -- hammered chimney -- chimney plop -- plop happily -- happiyyi ever -- ever point out -- point out think -- sink boring -- boring good heavens! -- good heavens! chilly -- chilly morning -- morning gorgeous -- gorgeous job -- job good -- dood festival -- festival party -- party birthday -- birfday lady -- yady gentlemen -- gennelmen toddler -- toddayer soaked -- shoaked white -- white chair (2) -- chair ripped -- ret legs -- yegs jacket -- jacka festival - festival
D: Why don't you like her? H: Because she meaned her eyes at me.
I later heard the other half of this story: Hayley had been barking at Margarete like a dog, which is why Margarete meaned her eyes at Hayley. I have seen Hayley do this to people, and it is really obnoxious. She gets on all fours, and barks at a person, refusing to speak (except sometimes to say in a falsetto: "I'm a dog!").
H: It yooks yike a gallimimus! D: Hmm, is that right? I remember the name but not the dinosaur. Do you have a book with a gallimimus in it? H: [Thinks] I do not know. I'll ask Mommy. [Runs for the kitchen] I'll tell [ask] her which dinosaur [book] it is in! Mommy, do you know which dinosaur gallimimus is in? M: No, I'm afraid I don't. H: [Holding her hands out to the side, palms up] In fact, we don't have any books with gallimimus in it.
This evening Hayley asked for macaroni and cheese, and I cooked her a kind that she hadn't had before, with alfredo sauce. She took one look at it and exclaimed
H: It's DIRDY!" D: Those are just spices, hon. H: It will be too fffficy! D: No, no, they aren't strong at all --- you won't even taste them. H: No. I don't want dat. D: [sigh] Ok, what *do* you want? H: [louder] I don't want dat! D: [slightly irritated] I know, just tell me what you want, and I'll cook it for you. H: [looking obstinate] I don't want dat! [shoves plate at me and storms off into the living room]I told her that when she calmed down and could tell me what she wanted, she should come back into the kitchen and we could talk. After a little while, she did, and we started to look for something she wanted. I refused to cook a second macaroni and cheese with a different sauce, and she started to get angry.
D: Hayley, look. I'm happy to make you whatever you want, but you have
to tell me what.
H: [on the verge of tears] But you yook yike [look like] you're mad at me!
D: [heart breaking] Oh hon, no, I'm not mad at you. [goes over and hugs
her]
H: But your eyes yooked yike you were mad at me.
D: I'm sorry if I looked mad. I was just a little irritated because
you didn't even try the pasta.
After this she asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and
everything was fine. The people at her daycare center said she was good
at talking about her feelings; I don't know what to do to encourage
this, but we seem to be doing roughly the right thing.
We went to get Hayley's picture taken today. The woman there posed Hayley with her hands crossed in her lap and her legs slightly crossed. This afternoon Hayley was playing with my (empty) camera, "taking pictures" of me. She knows how to press the shutter and wind the "film" on. Each time she carefully instructed me to assume the same pose she had in her picture :-)
This afternoon Hayley decided to replant some flowers she had given Kathy. There was half a planter free, so I let her dig some holes there to put the flowers in:
D: Be careful of the other plants' roots', Hayley. H: I *am* be-carefulling!Kirsten at her school mentioned that she had trouble with the faucets there, and I noticed that although she has little trouble with the bathroom sink faucets (a sort of metal arm that pivots), she can't deal with the bathtub faucets (circular) at all. It seems to be a combination of lack of strength and lack of knowledge of basic physics.
H: I want to see the sharp tooth pot! D: [very confused] What pot? H: No, no, you rewind to see parts of videos and movies D: Oh, the sharp-tooth *part*
A common (grammatical and physical) mistake for her:
I just drawed on myself by a mistake.Today in the living room she had been coloring and spread her crayons all around. Usually she just wanders off when something else catches her interest, but this time she picked up all her crayons, and then announced triumphantly to me,
Daddy, I picked up all my trayons by myself wivout aksing!meaning without being asked, of course.
Her counting of objects is really close to correct now. One of her problems is a tendency to skip 5. She was looking at her new dinosaur book, at a section that had five or six dinosaurs on each 2-page spread. The most common mistake she made, it seemed to me, was a subconscious attempt to end up with the same number as last time.
There was an occasion today where, in a book she was reading, the previous page had five dinosaurs, and the current page only had four. She counted off the dinosaurs, "one,...two,...", then a rapid "fwee four", pointing to the third dinosaur, and "FIVE", pointing to the last. She has done this a number of times, so I can see the pattern fairly well.
Vocabulary. I am so behind on this...
coin -- toin skate -- tsate mattress -- mattwess landing -- yanding slip -- syip sink -- sink whip -- whip (the dinosaur whips its tail at the other dinosaur) hide -- hide closer -- cwoser unpleasant -- unpweasant nice -- nice
H: I'm dunna dwaw you a picture. [she then started picking at a lump of blutack, used to hold up posters, not to draw with] D: That's nice. What are you going to draw it with? H: A dinosaur. D: No, not what of, but what with? H: A trayon.I think she had a firm expectation about what my next question was going to be; the only reason she was wrong was that I wondered what she was going to do with the blutack.
Hayley wanted to move one of her little chairs, a sort of upright beach-chair, to another room.
H: Yook, Daddy, I'm tswong enough to twawwy [carry] chairs... [she catches sight of one of the big heavy kitchen chairs] H: umm, yidda [little] chairs around. I'm not big enough to twawwy big chairs around.Later she was drawing on a piece of paper; I asked her what she was doing, and she proudly told me
I'm writing my yetters [letters] for tsool [school].
A few days ago she made up an insult: "whipper". When she is playing with her dinosaurs, she often makes the big nice herbivores clobber the nasty carnivores by "whipping" them with their tails, as in, whipping their tails around. Today she was angry at Kathy for some reason and she called her a "whipper".
She still doesn't seem to make much of a connection between the meat that she eats and the meat that animals eat. I guess it is so disguised a lot of the time that it is hard to tell.
j: Do you want me to kiss it better? H: I need a bandaid more dan a tiss.
apologize -- apowogize bandaid -- bandaid
H: I don't like these fuckin' drinks. D: [stunned for a second] HAYLEY! You don't use words like that in a store! H: I don't fuckin' care. D: All right, then, we're leaving. [scoops her up and heads out] H: [crying all the way out] I'm thirsty! I want a drink!
I have been having some interesting discussions with Hayley about eating meat. I am a recent convert to vegetarianism; Kathy and Hayley are omnivorous. Hayley and jude and I were playing with her dinosaurs. jude made one of the dinosaurs eat another, and Hayley said:
H: Don't eat dat dinosaur, dat isn't nice. j: It's not nice to eat dinosaurs? H: No. j: Then what is he going to eat? H: He can eat fish. j: Why can't he eat dinosaurs? H: Cos dey get up and walk. j: So you don't eat animals that get up and walk? H: No. D: But cows get up and walk, and you eat cows. H: [as if that were absurd] No we don't! D: Sure you do. Hamburgers are made from cows. H: No! Daddy, stop talking to me so much.
Another interesting discussion concerned whether people were animals. I asked her in the car on the way home one day whether cats were animals:
D: Are cats animals? H: Yes. D: Dogs? H: Yes. D: People? H: No! [of course not] D: Yes they are. H: [vehemently] No! People aren't animals! D: Whatever.Later that evening jude asked her whether people were animals, and she replied:
Ummm, dey are sort of like animals.I found it interesting how a single data point could change her opinion so much.
Hayley started her new daycare on Monday, at the child care center on the Butler grounds. Before going Kathy had explained to her that she might be sad, and maybe even cry a bit on the first day. Hayley told us later that she might cry "a yidda bit". Kathy and I both took her to the daycare, but Kathy wimped out and left before me so she wouldn't see Hayley too upset (she then cried all the way to work :-). I played with Hayley for a little bit and then managed to tear myself away. Apparently she only cried for a few minutes, and enjoyed most of the rest of the day. At one point she was sad, and one of the other kids came up and gave her a hug and told her that she had been sad on her first day too. When Kathy called to find out how she was doing, they told us that Hayley had said to them:
I don't know why my Mommy and Daddy left me here. I don't know why I'm so sad.She has seemed very happy each time we have picked her up, and seems to get along well with the other kids. Today when I came to pick her up, she was playing with dinosaurs; apparently, she had been waiting all day to play with them. I played with her for a few minutes, and then told her we would have to leave. She got very upset, and wanted to play more with the dinosaurs. One of the daycare people explained to me that she had been waiting all day, and had only had ten minutes to play with them. So I told Hayley she could play with them for a few more minutes. She played around for about a minute, and then said: "Beep, beep. It's time to go now.", got up and left.
On the way back from daycare, Hayley asked me:
H: Do people eat cars? D: No. H: Why? D: Well, they are made of metal and plastic and that's too hard for us to eat; it would break our teeth and we wouldn't be able to chew. H: [Thinks a bit] Do people eat yights [lights]? D: Lights? You mean lightbulbs? H: yeah --- no, yights. D: You mean lamps? H: yeah. D: No, people don't eat lamps either; they are usually made of wood or metal, and we can't eat wood or metal. H: What big do people eat? [What big things do people eat?] D: Umm, well, people eat cows.She thought about that for a bit and then went on to talk about something else. It is amazing how young denial sets in; most of the time she just refuses to talk about the relationship between animals and meat.
We went through a drive-through to get dinner, and I ordered a shake, asking what flavours they had. They said "vanilla, coffee, chocolate", at which point Hayley piped up:
H: I can't drink coffee! I might get hypers! D: It's ok, I'm not getting any coffee.
Hayley and I were drawing in the living room; she asked me to draw a car. I got her toy Mercedes to use as a model, and started to draw, a side view, so I drew two wheels.
H: Where de unner wheels? D: Well, you can't see them. H: Why? D: Look at this car [holds up toy Mercedes]. How many wheels does it have? H: [Pointing and counting correctly] One, two, three, four! D: That's right, very good. Now put the car on the table. How many wheels can you see? H: [surprised] Two! D: That's right, that's why I only drew two --- when you see it from the side, you can only see two of the wheels. H: [Thinks for a bit] Dat's torrectyee. Dat's right. [That's correctly. That's right.]This was the first time I have seen her count correctly, pointing to each object in turn and counting one number per object. Perhaps she has seen other children count at her new daycare.
One of her stuffed animals, a little frog, has become her "baby". She explained to us that he doesn't talk yet, because he is too small. We have to hold him tightly against us, not dangling, and she doesn't like to leave him alone because "he will be sad".
Hayley has a curious habit of twiddling her fingers when she is thinking, as if drumming them on a table or typing on a keyboard. She uses gestures like a shrug with hands held open, facing up, to indicate "I don't know".
Hayley has learned to form past tenses by adding -ed.
Halloween -- Halloween sometimes -- sometimes merry-go-round -- merry-go-roundToday I was in a store with Hayley. She found a stuffed dinosaur that she wanted, and I told her I didn't want to get it for her; I didn't think it was worth it. I suggested that we get one at a nature store or whatever. She told me that Kathy had told her she could have it (which turned out to be true, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it at the time). So I told her that the next time she came to this store with Kathy, she could get it. She was upset, but more sad than angry; she told me she was sad because she wasn't going to be with the dinosaur tonight. She then went over to the dinosaur and said:
H: [sad voice] I'm sorry I can't take you home today, but when I come back with Mommy I can det [get] you. H: [as dinosaur] That's ok. I want to stay here tonight. H: [to me, more happily] De dinosaur said he wanted to stay here tonight! D: Ah, maybe he has friends here he wants to be with. H: Yeah. [I finished getting what I needed and paid for it, then as we were leaving:] H: Wait! I got to tell [ask] de dinosaur [if] it's otay I don't get him today! D: No, hon, you can get him next time. [heads for the door] H: [wails] No, no. D: [sigh] ok. Go tell him then. H: I need you to tell me which... which... D: aisle? Ok. [we trog back to the aisle with the dinosaurs] H: Dinosaur, is it otay I don't get you today? H: [listens to dinosaur, then nods, satisfied] He says it's otay.
On the way back from daycare today, Hayley told me that Barney was her best friend. Her best "cwoff [cloth]" friend, that is. I asked her who her best friend at daycare was.
H: Gweer [Greer]... and Jesse. D: Jesse? I don't think I know Jesse. H: He's vewwy quiet. You have to know him. D: Ah, you have to get to know him to appreciate him? H: Yeah. To appwe... appweciate him.
Here is her rendition of the first page of "The Three Little Pigs":
You're too big to yive here any more, so go and build your houses, she said. Go and build your houses, said de mother. But make sure de woof doesn't catch you!
It is interesting that she knows that "she said" and "said the mother" are interchangeable, and is some indication that she is remembering the meaning rather than the words. Another thing I noticed is that she sometimes changes things that are presumably meaningless to her into meaningful things; for example, "by the hair of my chinny chin chin" becomes "by my hairy chin"
After I had read her the three little pigs a few times, she looked at me:
H: What is our house made of? [Oops --- we live in a wooden house :-)] D: Umm, well, some of the house is made with bricks. H: It's made of bwicks, right? D: Umm, yes, yes.
When I picked Hayley up from daycare today they were watching the Lion King. Hayley came out of the area where she was, and brushing me aside with a firm "wait", explained to one of the teachers: "I'm afwaid I can't watch the end of the Yion King, cuz my father is here."
I committed a most grievous sin the other day --- I forgot Barney at daycare. When it was bedtime, we searched high and low, but couldn't find him. Hayley was devastated.
H: Barney will be all awone! M&D: No, no, there are lots of other toys there. H: But he won't have my bwankie! M&D: Well, he can use the other blanket that you leave at daycare. H: How will he know where to find it? M&D: Oh, he'll find it easily.This went on for some time, but eventually we persuaded her that it would be ok, and she went to sleep; the next day she got her Barney back again.
We were looking for the crayons that can be used on a plastic drawing sheet.
D: Which crayons is it... These? H: No. D: So, where are these crayons? D: Or we could just draw on paper if you like. H: How do you draw on paper? D: Paper... Paper is what you normally draw on. H: I want draw on dat [plastic sheet]. D: Sure, but we have to find the crayons that go with it. H: Can you pwease? D: Well, I don't even know what they look like, hon. H: Dey're like, dey're like nitz. [shows me a pink crayon] D: They're pink? H: yeah. [...] H: Oh, so... look! H: Yet's yook at nitz. [not sure what she was looking at] H: I'm helping you. D: Yes, you are, very much. H: Dad, where could dey be? [loses interest] H: Dad, can I pway wid nitz thing for now? [Picks up the bumble ball] D: Sure, but we may need to change the batteries. H: Oh. De batteries died. Let's go down and change the batteries now. D: That sounds like a good idea.
the rings are
about 3cm in diameter, with a thickness of maybe 4mm. They are
dispensed by a machine that is continuously filled up by an attendant
while the ride is going; a metal mouth like the ones that dispense
tickets holds a ring partially extended, and you have to pinch your
fingers at just the right moment to get it. If the ring is brass, you
get a free ride; otherwise, you toss the ring into a clown's head a
quarter turn on. As someone there pointed out, if the mechanism jams,
it is quite easy to lose a finger, and in this age of litigation, it is
surprising that the owners still risk it... The merry-go-round was very
fast compared to the ones at Roger Williams Park and the mall; it was
quite difficult to move Hayley from one mount to another in the middle
(as we invariably end up having to do).
Hayley's best friend at the moment is a little girl called Greer; when
they meet, they immediately start to tickle each other. Greer is, I
think, about a year older than Hayley --- asking Hayley about ages is
not at all productive .
vocabulary:
roof -- roof drawer -- dwawer door -- door hairy -- hairy fire -- fire hammered -- hammered chimney -- chimney plop -- plop happily -- happiyyi ever -- ever point out -- point out think -- sink boring -- boring good heavens! -- good heavens! chilly -- chilly morning -- morning gorgeous -- gorgeous job -- job good -- dood festival -- festival party -- party birthday -- birfday lady -- yady gentlemen -- gennelmen toddler -- toddayer soaked -- shoaked white -- white chair (2) -- chair ripped -- ret legs -- yegs jacket -- jacka festival - festival
D: Why don't you like her? H: Because she meaned her eyes at me.
I later heard the other half of this story: Hayley had been barking at Margarete like a dog, which is why Margarete meaned her eyes at Hayley. I have seen Hayley do this to people, and it is really obnoxious. She gets on all fours, and barks at a person, refusing to speak (except sometimes to say in a falsetto: "I'm a dog!").
H: It yooks yike a gallimimus! D: Hmm, is that right? I remember the name but not the dinosaur. Do you have a book with a gallimimus in it? H: [Thinks] I do not know. I'll ask Mommy. [Runs for the kitchen] I'll tell [ask] her which dinosaur [book] it is in! Mommy, do you know which dinosaur gallimimus is in? M: No, I'm afraid I don't. H: [Holding her hands out to the side, palms up] In fact, we don't have any books with gallimimus in it.
This evening Hayley asked for macaroni and cheese, and I cooked her a kind that she hadn't had before, with alfredo sauce. She took one look at it and exclaimed
H: It's DIRDY!" D: Those are just spices, hon. H: It will be too fffficy! D: No, no, they aren't strong at all --- you won't even taste them. H: No. I don't want dat. D: [sigh] Ok, what *do* you want? H: [louder] I don't want dat! D: [slightly irritated] I know, just tell me what you want, and I'll cook it for you. H: [looking obstinate] I don't want dat! [shoves plate at me and storms off into the living room]I told her that when she calmed down and could tell me what she wanted, she should come back into the kitchen and we could talk. After a little while, she did, and we started to look for something she wanted. I refused to cook a second macaroni and cheese with a different sauce, and she started to get angry.
D: Hayley, look. I'm happy to make you whatever you want, but you have
to tell me what.
H: [on the verge of tears] But you yook yike [look like] you're mad at me!
D: [heart breaking] Oh hon, no, I'm not mad at you. [goes over and hugs
her]
H: But your eyes yooked yike you were mad at me.
D: I'm sorry if I looked mad. I was just a little irritated because
you didn't even try the pasta.
After this she asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and
everything was fine. The people at her daycare center said she was good
at talking about her feelings; I don't know what to do to encourage
this, but we seem to be doing roughly the right thing.
We went to get Hayley's picture taken today. The woman there posed
Hayley with her hands crossed in her lap and her legs slightly crossed.
This afternoon Hayley was playing with my (empty) camera, "taking
pictures" of me. She knows how to press the shutter and wind the "film"
on. Each time she carefully instructed me to assume
the same pose she had in her picture
This afternoon Hayley decided to replant some flowers she had given Kathy. There was half a planter free, so I let her dig some holes there to put the flowers in:
D: Be careful of the other plants' roots', Hayley. H: I *am* be-carefulling!Kirsten at her school mentioned that she had trouble with the faucets there, and I noticed that although she has little trouble with the bathroom sink faucets (a sort of metal arm that pivots), she can't deal with the bathtub faucets (circular) at all. It seems to be a combination of lack of strength and lack of knowledge of basic physics.
H: I want to see the sharp tooth pot! D: [very confused] What pot? H: No, no, you rewind to see parts of videos and movies D: Oh, the sharp-tooth *part*
A common (grammatical and physical) mistake for her:
I just drawed on myself by a mistake.Today in the living room she had been coloring and spread her crayons all around. Usually she just wanders off when something else catches her interest, but this time she picked up all her crayons, and then announced triumphantly to me,
Daddy, I picked up all my trayons by myself wivout aksing!meaning without being asked, of course.
Her counting of objects is really close to correct now. One of her problems is a tendency to skip 5. She was looking at her new dinosaur book, at a section that had five or six dinosaurs on each 2-page spread. The most common mistake she made, it seemed to me, was a subconscious attempt to end up with the same number as last time.
There was an occasion today where, in a book she was reading, the previous page had five dinosaurs, and the current page only had four. She counted off the dinosaurs, "one,...two,...", then a rapid "fwee four", pointing to the third dinosaur, and "FIVE", pointing to the last. She has done this a number of times, so I can see the pattern fairly well.
Vocabulary. I am so behind on this...
coin -- toin skate -- tsate mattress -- mattwess landing -- yanding slip -- syip sink -- sink whip -- whip (the dinosaur whips its tail at the other dinosaur) hide -- hide closer -- cwoser unpleasant -- unpweasant nice -- nice
H: I'm dunna dwaw you a picture. [she then started picking at a lump of blutack, used to hold up posters, not to draw with] D: That's nice. What are you going to draw it with? H: A dinosaur. D: No, not what of, but what with? H: A trayon.I think she had a firm expectation about what my next question was going to be; the only reason she was wrong was that I wondered what she was going to do with the blutack.
Hayley wanted to move one of her little chairs, a sort of upright beach-chair, to another room.
H: Yook, Daddy, I'm tswong enough to twawwy [carry] chairs... [she catches sight of one of the big heavy kitchen chairs] H: umm, yidda [little] chairs around. I'm not big enough to twawwy big chairs around.Later she was drawing on a piece of paper; I asked her what she was doing, and she proudly told me
I'm writing my yetters [letters] for tsool [school].
A few days ago she made up an insult: "whipper". When she is playing with her dinosaurs, she often makes the big nice herbivores clobber the nasty carnivores by "whipping" them with their tails, as in, whipping their tails around. Today she was angry at Kathy for some reason and she called her a "whipper".
She still doesn't seem to make much of a connection between the meat that she eats and the meat that animals eat. I guess it is so disguised a lot of the time that it is hard to tell.
j: Do you want me to kiss it better? H: I need a bandaid more dan a tiss.
apologize -- apowogize bandaid -- bandaid
H: I don't like these fuckin' drinks. D: [stunned for a second] HAYLEY! You don't use words like that in a store! H: I don't fuckin' care. D: All right, then, we're leaving. [scoops her up and heads out] H: [crying all the way out] I'm thirsty! I want a drink!
I have been having some interesting discussions with Hayley about eating meat. I am a recent convert to vegetarianism; Kathy and Hayley are omnivorous. Hayley and jude and I were playing with her dinosaurs. jude made one of the dinosaurs eat another, and Hayley said:
H: Don't eat dat dinosaur, dat isn't nice. j: It's not nice to eat dinosaurs? H: No. j: Then what is he going to eat? H: He can eat fish. j: Why can't he eat dinosaurs? H: Cos dey get up and walk. j: So you don't eat animals that get up and walk? H: No. D: But cows get up and walk, and you eat cows. H: [as if that were absurd] No we don't! D: Sure you do. Hamburgers are made from cows. H: No! Daddy, stop talking to me so much.
Another interesting discussion concerned whether people were animals. I asked her in the car on the way home one day whether cats were animals:
D: Are cats animals? H: Yes. D: Dogs? H: Yes. D: People? H: No! [of course not] D: Yes they are. H: [vehemently] No! People aren't animals! D: Whatever.Later that evening jude asked her whether people were animals, and she replied:
Ummm, dey are sort of like animals.I found it interesting how a single data point could change her opinion so much.
Hayley started her new daycare on Monday, at the child care center on the
Butler grounds. Before going Kathy had explained to her that she might
be sad, and maybe even cry a bit on the first day. Hayley told us later
that she might cry "a yidda bit". Kathy and I both took her to the
daycare, but Kathy wimped out and left before me so she wouldn't see
Hayley too upset (she then cried all the way to work . I played with Hayley for
a little bit and then managed to tear myself away. Apparently she
only cried for a few minutes, and enjoyed most of the rest of the day.
At one point she was sad, and one of the other kids came up and gave her
a hug and told her that she had been sad on her first day too.
When Kathy called to find out how she was doing, they told us that
Hayley had said to them:
I don't know why my Mommy and Daddy left me here. I don't know why I'm so sad.She has seemed very happy each time we have picked her up, and seems to get along well with the other kids. Today when I came to pick her up, she was playing with dinosaurs; apparently, she had been waiting all day to play with them. I played with her for a few minutes, and then told her we would have to leave. She got very upset, and wanted to play more with the dinosaurs. One of the daycare people explained to me that she had been waiting all day, and had only had ten minutes to play with them. So I told Hayley she could play with them for a few more minutes. She played around for about a minute, and then said: "Beep, beep. It's time to go now.", got up and left.
On the way back from daycare, Hayley asked me:
H: Do people eat cars? D: No. H: Why? D: Well, they are made of metal and plastic and that's too hard for us to eat; it would break our teeth and we wouldn't be able to chew. H: [Thinks a bit] Do people eat yights [lights]? D: Lights? You mean lightbulbs? H: yeah --- no, yights. D: You mean lamps? H: yeah. D: No, people don't eat lamps either; they are usually made of wood or metal, and we can't eat wood or metal. H: What big do people eat? [What big things do people eat?] D: Umm, well, people eat cows.She thought about that for a bit and then went on to talk about something else. It is amazing how young denial sets in; most of the time she just refuses to talk about the relationship between animals and meat.
We went through a drive-through to get dinner, and I ordered a shake, asking what flavours they had. They said "vanilla, coffee, chocolate", at which point Hayley piped up:
H: I can't drink coffee! I might get hypers! D: It's ok, I'm not getting any coffee.
Hayley and I were drawing in the living room; she asked me to draw a car. I got her toy Mercedes to use as a model, and started to draw, a side view, so I drew two wheels.
H: Where de unner wheels? D: Well, you can't see them. H: Why? D: Look at this car [holds up toy Mercedes]. How many wheels does it have? H: [Pointing and counting correctly] One, two, three, four! D: That's right, very good. Now put the car on the table. How many wheels can you see? H: [surprised] Two! D: That's right, that's why I only drew two --- when you see it from the side, you can only see two of the wheels. H: [Thinks for a bit] Dat's torrectyee. Dat's right. [That's correctly. That's right.]This was the first time I have seen her count correctly, pointing to each object in turn and counting one number per object. Perhaps she has seen other children count at her new daycare.
One of her stuffed animals, a little frog, has become her "baby". She explained to us that he doesn't talk yet, because he is too small. We have to hold him tightly against us, not dangling, and she doesn't like to leave him alone because "he will be sad".
Hayley has a curious habit of twiddling her fingers when she is thinking, as if drumming them on a table or typing on a keyboard. She uses gestures like a shrug with hands held open, facing up, to indicate "I don't know".
Hayley has learned to form past tenses by adding -ed.