Bombs Bursting In Air

Siena accomapnied Mama and Daddy to Marina Del Rey for a Fourth of July barbecue on the boat of our friends Stewart and Kim, proud parents of baby Kyle, or as Siena says, "Babee Glaighle."

Yes, Siena still has trouble with certain consonants. In fact, she can't even say "S," so she still refers to herself as "Enna." But she has noticeably improved in her verbal skills in just the past few days. She's picking up new words more quickly; within minutes she was calling for "Kim!" on the boat. And she's pronouncing words better; Pllease no longer comes out as "Peez," but now more like "Pull-leeze," kind of like how Sylvester the Cat might pronounce it.

The next big step, I expect, will be sentences. Sunday we attended the fourth birthday party of Jared, whose daddy goes to school with Mama. At the party I noticed that another little girl, only two-and-a-half, was speaking in sentences and using words like "maybe." That strikes me as an intellectual quantum leap from Siena's simple commands, e.g., "Daddy! Up!" or "More Milk!" I can't wait to see Siena make that jump; I just can't imagine how it happens in the mind of the toddler.

That birthday party was a pool party, and Siena's love for playing in the pool has only grown. So much so, in fact, that now we really have to watch her around any pool that she could crawl or fall into herself. Nothing cute here; just a paternal concern that I needed to vent about.