Communicating with Alena

Our sweet little girl is getting smarter and smarter, and we're able to communicate with her on a few things these days. For instance:

She does the ASL sign for "milk." (Well, really an approximation. She makes a fist and shakes it.) It actually means "I'm hungry, give me something that's not necessarily milk, but could be." Unless she is standing with one hand on the fridge in which case she really means milk.

She can also do the ASL sign for "more." It is also used in reference to food.

She can say "yum." She says, 'Mum, mum!"

She says bye and waves. Ok she says, "daDA!" and waves.

She also says "Dada" to mean dad, but with a different vocal inflection. It's possible to differentiate. Yesterday I saw Kevin walking up the driveway and told Alena, "Daddy's home." She got up and walked to the kitchen door to wait for him to come in.

She says "Ba ba ba ba" for ball.

She pats her head which means, "One fell off and bumped his head."

She shakes her index finger in a scolding fashion which means, "No more monsters jumping on the bed." (Our book has monsters rather than monkeys.)

The other day she had taken one of my shoes and put it somewhere I couldn't find it. So I was talking to her as I looked. I said, "Alena, where did you put my shoe? Can you go get it for me?" She came back with a shoe. The wrong one, but still.

Yesterday at Family Home Evening I wanted to include Alena so I asked her to go get the calendar. She looked at me and shrugged. I guess she doesn't understand "calendar." That or she didn't know how she was going to get it off of the wall to bring it back to us. But she followed Kevin to the office, got the calendar from him, then walked back and handed it to me.

She occasionally will meow like a cat when shown a picture. That one's really hit and miss though. Possibly because it's so adorable she won't show it to just anybody.