We have been in our new living space for about a month and the only room that still has not been fixed to our satisfaction is Daniela’s room. We are still working on getting her a bed that we feel will best make her more indepenedent. We were able to have her meet Veronica and Rick who stayed with us a night.

I am told that wedding bells will soon be ringing for them two but we will see when that happens. We did not get to see the boys before they left but the timing was off. Dad decided that he was going to build and construct while the kids were on vacation and did not bring them up one more time to the beach. We were still in unpacking and moving things mode while they were here.

We survived a potential Tropical Storm Isaac who is now a hurricane in the lower part of the U.S. Louisianna and New Orleans. Daniela did not notice anything when the rains were here because we kept her busy and we had her help us clean.

We have noticed that she is stringing words together in sentences and you can see her little brain working on getting those words into a coherent sentence. Today I was laughing because she started singing “Clean Clean Toto Clean Up” and then she substituted Toto for Mama and then Papa.

She is also starting to complain about when myself or Raul or even JuanGa does something to her. She loves learning new words and names of people and will repeat them quickly. She will also make up a song about the new word she has just learned.

We have also been doing Zumba because she likes to “bailar” This has gotten me somewhat motivated to get my fat butt in sometype of shape. Nonetheless, she loves to color, paint, and once she sets her mind to doing a specific task like playing with paperclips dumping and putting them in their bin, she can keep going and going. But once she gets bored its on to harrassing JuanGa with the chair.

Recently she has been interacting more with children at the Organic Market and even told one girl to Sit Please. She blew a kiss at a complete stranger and it makes her giggle when someone looks at her and says “hola” or “hello”

She is speaking more short sentences in Spanish than English. But you can tell she understands both. She is counting and singing her ABCs. She is learning how to wash herself and I give her little tasks to do like putting her clothes away from the laundry basket into her drawers.

She is a handful at times but it is part of her growing up. She alread says her name and is practicing on saying Lucia. She does speak about herself in the third person. She will say Papa Colon Daniela Colon JuanGa Colon and even Colon Mama. When I say no to her she will keep on saying Colon Mama just to see me get miffed. Then she will say Feliciano Mama. But she started putting Colon against every bodys name on her own. Now she will sit with Raul and ask him to write her name out so she can write.

Ever since we found out about the windmills being built in St. Isabel, we always wondered where the hell they were being built. Well sometime in May, we found out exactly where; right behind our urbanization in St. Isabel. We were outraged that they were being built so close that Raul wrote about it and the conversations he had with folks led him to realize that although we researched the possible health risks, the politics involved were outweighing any information blog posts anyone could write. So Raul started the hunt and lo and behold our friend Melvin knew of an apartment opening up in his complex right on the beach. Well Raul wanted Rincon or Isla Verde. I wanted somewhere in the middle like Caguas or Ponce.

We had visited Melvin several times and new how neat it was to live so close to the beach. Raul talked to the owner, checked out the apartment and then had us come up to see it. We talked about the pros and cons and when we couldn’t find anything else we liked, we agreed to take the apartment in Isla Verde.

Since we did not want to leave our realtor Michael hanging with an apartment, we had told him that we were in the process of signing a contract with the apartment and it gave him ample time to look for a new tenant. He found one and we ended up moving earlier than expected.

I did not do well with the move because I wanted to help Raul as much as I could but Daniela wanted to be up in my arms because of the influx of people coming in and out of the house. Finally Maria del Carmen and Carlos Juan came to the rescue and helped us pack, unpack, clean, and throw out  the stuff we did not want within two days. Mind you we had decided early in July and prior to that had been shredding throwing things away and organizing. Maria del Carmen and Carlos Juan helped pack what we had left.

We have been in the apartment a week and Daniela has found new friends in the building named Ramon and Melvin. Not kids but adults who love her company. She has even learned new words like Olas, Bote, Para el Agua, and more words. She is not as shy around other people as she was before and goes to Melvin and Don Ramon very quickly when they want to pick her up. With ladies except for our friend Eudeliz, she is shying away or closing her eyes. LOL We have seen her go from not wanting anyone else but Raul and I to giving other people high five. JuanGa has lots of dogs to look at, stare down, and bark at but he also is getting lots of attention.

Daniela has picked up so many words that she is saying short sentences. Her favorite, “I see You!” She also closes her eyes when we tell her something and opens them slightly like I see you and hear you but I ain’t moving. She is picking up so much language lately it is scary. She is also a little to free with her hands and has wacked me a couple times. I put her down and she starts crying. That is her punishment putting her down.

She is also attempting to sing the Alphabet song and invents her own songs as well. She chases JuanGa down with chairs or her table  and it’s basically no mercy for him.

We will put pictures of the new place soon.

Daniela has begun to form sentences with two and sometimes three words. Her vocabulary grows each day and we have been working with her to learn both English and Spanish. She does know more Spanish words than English so I am trying to repeat in both languages. But if you ask Raul she knows more English than Spanish.  But that is an arguement for another day.

She continues her love for painting, planting, playing with barbasol (yes we do this for sensory play), smelling basil. We even caught her eating Moringa (calcium plant) on her own. We also bought her first pair of shoes from Chiquitins in the mall and then found a pair of shoes called Skidders. We have found that the Skidders are easier for her to walk around in because they are flexible and not so rigid. We did not take pictures of her because we were too busy asking questions.

Daniela continues to be curious about food and had tea (no sugar) for the first time the other day. She will eat everthing even cremita de calabaza which she was not eating any of when she was littler. She will climb our work chairs in two seconds almost leprechaun like if you ask me. She dominates Juanga and the other day she told him “No No No Puppy” when he was going to eat her cookie.

She loves music especially percussion music. She will dance even when there isn’t any music. All she has to do is listen to a beat and she is moving her feet, arms, head and entire body.

Daniela understands the concept of “Thank You” When we give her something, she will say it. She is also starting to understand the word “Ayuda” “Help” Instead of getting frustrated and crying, Raul and I have been reinforcing the word so we can help her get something or move something.

We feed the birds with her and water plants. She has also taken to cleaning, sweeping, and cooking. I will put a pot, spoon, and food and she will cook. Although most things end up on the floor, it gives me some time to cook. If she sees us cleaning, she will ask for a paper towel and windex or water and vinger mixture to clean up. We do sing the clean up song to her when we pick up her toys except that she just sings and doesn’t actually hand toys.

We have played with bubbles with her and she is learning how to blow. She will also blow on her food when it is “hot hot” . She is learning the difference between hot and cold. When an ice cube falls, she will say “cold” and if her food is too, hot, she will let us know. I try not to give her hot food but sometimes she gets too impatient and will end up shooving hot food in her mouth. So will say hot hot.

Raul is a champ with changing her pampers. I am still having problems with that and she knows it so she doesn’t cooperate with me as well as with Raul . I have been giving her cotton balls and her blankets but sometimes that doesn’t work either. It is more about me not being able to handle the smell of poo than anything else.

Raul bought an Elmo app for the iPad and that is her favorite thus far. Especially a video in the app where Grover is dancing disco. Another thing she is in love with is a clown named Payasa Agapita. Since we are helping her with a website, she sees Payasa Agapita and wants to watch her videos.

She is learning how to decipher different sounds also. If she hears a plane in the sky, without seeing it, she will say avion. If she hears a truck go by, she will try to say camion.

Daniela has been trying to put clothes on by herself, but a majority of the time she is in her pampers. It has been hot lately and so we just live her almost in her birthday suit. She will feed herself with a spoon or fork (big persons fork and spoon) she will also drink water on her own.

And yes we are still breastfeeding her and she doesn’t look like she is stopping anytime soon. So water and breastmilk are what we are giving her. No juice or soda. She loves her fruits and she will eat vegan cookies that Raul found with no egg or milk in them. Her first sentence with three or more words was “Cookie Please. Thank You”

When we are out she will take our hand and sometimes she doesn’t want us to hold her hand and that is when we will pick her up. Sometimes she is daring and other times she is shy around other people. The other day at a restaurant she started blowing kisses at a lady who was eating behind us.

On to the the next month to see what else is instore.

This month has gone by so fast. Daniela’s language has picked up so much that everyday she is learning a new word. What makes this special is when we are outside of the house and she can identify an object by using the word. Raul and I are amazed at how quickly she is picking up Spanish and English. She has really good balance on her feet and tip toes. She was even trying to jump up yesterday to touch the moon or luna.

She dances everywhere and for the holiday weekend, we went to Piñones where she dance to batucada music and played the maracas. She is a little sponge. She loves to help feed the dog by scooping his food, loves helping water the plants. She is trying to put her clothes on as well.

She has become really good at this puzzle on the iPad and most mornings the first words out of her mouth are either teta, toy for the Toy Story App, A for the puzzle app, or iPad. She will continue to go over to her book corner and read every book there. She also continues her love for paint. We do lots of activities outside like planting, playing with dirt, water play, and JuanGa play.

Words Daniela Knows

This month Daniela was steadily progressing with her walking. Not only was she walking forward, but she was also walking backwards and sideways. With blankets over her head, bouncing into walls, and falling backwards.

Her vocabulary has extended to say body parts such as nariz, dedos, toto, she is pointing to her tetas.

She loves to say Toy for the Toy Story app on her Pad which is what she calls the iPad.

We made her an alphabet board and she loves mimicking my hand motions and tryint to say her alphabet in her baby talk.

She will sit and read books in her room, on her rug, or floor.

Lately she has a fascination with Agua which is the word for water. I started letting her play with little buckets of water after I found her sitting in the dog bowl a few times and telling her not to do that. Why fight a losing battle when she is going to continue to do it?

So we put on her protective bathing suit, fill up her buckets with water and let her play.

We have also planted coriander with her and she loves the smell of basil. We have done some arts and crafts projects with her for Raul’s birthday which can be seen on Papaheroes.com Here is the link http://papaheroes.com/category/art/.

Overall we continue to encourage the use of both languages, we put books in front of her all the time, we paint with her twice a week or more, we are letting her explore outside in our mini-garden, and she dances all the time.

She ran down her first hill and wiped out when we went to El Morro at the end of the month.

It is harder work running up and down the stairs after her, telling her not climb up and down the little furniture we have.

She has had a split lip, bruised cheek all because she was walking too fast or playing. When she split her lip bad on this little chest where her toys are in the living room, we thought we were going to have to go to the hospital. Luckily Freddy the Doctor came and said she was okay. A few days later she was pushing her bumpo in the office and fell forward and bruised her cheek.

It definately is trying to see them bruised, scrapped and hurt. Raul is definately more patient than I am with these things and springs into action quicker.

I am tired most days from making sure she isn’t getting into something. But when she is tired and asleep, I have to remind myself that I was not the most calmest baby or toddler and I am sure I gave my parents a run for their money too.