mile stones

every time i've written lately, i've forgotten to update you on mali's speech development. she's added a few words to her bag in the past week or so. she says "dog" with quite a bit of flourish. she loves wang cai, so i suppose it wasn't too surprising that it came so quickly. at least she said "mama" before "dog", unlike her sister. she's also saying "hi" with a really cute wave.

recently, i've had to try to explain to noe that we do not kiss people who aren't family. it's not a conversation i was prepared to have quite yet, but it became necessary when she tried to kiss one of her friends, a little boy named brenton. his parents are friends of our from church and had dropped by to see the new house while we were tearing down wallpaper. brenton is in nursery with her and at the play groups every other week. so while we were standing around talking, i notice she's facing him, her face uplifted, and he's backing away, hiding around his mom. i, of course, called her back over to me to tell her to keep her lips to herself. it was funny, but in more of an "uh oh" kind of way. daddy is in denial, of course, saying that he didn't see anything and that she was just being friendly. well, yes...but i'd rather she showed her friendliness through sharing her toys. i'll have to keep a closer eye on her.