Tan = fan

Bah-ee-kee = bike or motorcycle

Today he also kept saying "teem" which I think was in reference to "building" but I can't be sure, as he hasn't used it in other contexts.

Mah-oof = mouth - this is in reference to tongue actually, and I only made this connection when he referred to the "licky" emoticon as "mah-oof." He also calls the "evil" emoticon gato, I think because it has "ears."

Dah-it-ee = light

Meh-eesh = mess

Now we have a real sentence - "mee mee, assee cah-o" = "filme, assistir carros" - movie, watch cars. So cute.

Pah pah-o = "chapéu" - hat

Puhm = plumb (did I post this already?)

ahm = food, something to eat - not sure, but I think this is in relation to the noise I make when I want him to take a bite of something.

(and thanks to Rio for pointing out the mistakes)

Just after Xmas, two huge boxes of my things I left to be mailed to me over two years ago arrived. The delay here is for various reasons, but mostly due to my inability to accomplish things I meant to and leaving them for others to take care of. Anyway, so finally, most of my things are here, and this house is actually looking like me - lots of little nick nacks about, pictures, books....

In the last two and a half years I have lived here, various books have been sent to me, due to my plea for English reading material. O Maridão was always aggravated by the contiuous entrance of new dust collecting material, since I would usually plow through the book in about 2-3 days and then it would sit on a shelf in case I wanted to read it again. With this new box arrival, I finally decided to remove the books I have read to be donated to the Pan Am library. This is about 100 books of various sizes. A great wieght has been removed from our selves. But only to be replaced with more.

A great bulk of the weight in the new boxes was the books I moved about with me throughout college- many of them required readings for classes I took and were the $10-$20 novel or small paper back book that I would never get more than $1.50 back for returning, so I never bothered to do so. Most of them I never really read, yet managed to pass the classes anyway (what does that say?).

So now I am settling down to read them, actually read and digest them, trying to remember what it was they were supposed to teach me. At the time I was supposed to have done this, I was never able to stay awake or pay attention to the words on the page. I had attributed this to the lack of sleep, going out and partying, immense pressure kind of problem that happens to all of us during college. But I am finding that when I open them and begin, the same thing is happening - read a page and ... wait a minute, what did I just read? Incredibley boring, page long rants about German-ness, individual histories with the author, why he/she is important for history to recognize.... What was the point of that? It's gotten so bad that I am simultaneously reading three different books right now, and I cannot really remember what is in any of them...

So really what it comes down to is - why do they pick such horrible boring things for us to read in college? I mean, there must be something out there that is both entertaining and educational at the same time. They do it all the time for kids, look at Sesemae Steet, and really any program on PBS. Experts wonder why my generation doesn't read more now adays, blaming it on television and the internet etc, but I think what it really comes down to is that the only reading we have time for for several years is the most dry and horrible stuff you can imagine. And now out of some guilty feeling of having gotten credit for a class I never did the work for, I am trying to figure out why they felt this is worthwhile. Is it possible anyone enjoys these books anymore with so many more interesting things to read? I know the classics have got their place, but they were classics because they were so interesting at the time, so different, such a great message, daring etc... Surely there must be some way to update this curriculum....

Ju is officially making two word sentences. The first one is "pum de papai" - "fart (of) daddy" or daddy's fart. You can see the kind of encouragement he gets at home; must be a family trait.

Mee-ão : Camião = truck

Ju is making more and more associations. When he watches his car movie, he plays with his cars. When he watches "Fly away home" he plays with his penguin.

ee-ais : rice (sounds kind of like "yes" when he says it)

New Ju developments:

Ju has some kind of mania with pink/peach crayons. Every time he gets the crayons out, he finds all the pieces of them and carries them around with him. It's only that particular color. Very strange.

There is apparently a large influx of ghosts in this apartment. Ju says "taow taow" and waves bye bye to no-see-ums about 10 times a day. No idea who they are.

During his daily "Cars" watch, he imitates different sounds and repeats "no, no" when ever the characters say "no."

When you remove a wet diaper, he says "shee shee" and makes a "it stinks" sound and waves his hand in front of his face. He also does this action for a poopy diaper.

Ju thinks farts are really funny. If he hears a fart or makes one himself, he will come and tell me "mamãe, PUM!" and laugh about it.

Tan: crayon

bahee-kee : bike

Ah-oh: Hello (when the phone rings)

Ju is imitating words left and right. Consistently he seems to be following the Brasilian English tendency to add "ee" on the end of "k" sounds (bikey, cakey).

And so another year comes to an end. And to celebrate it, we will leave the city and party all night at a rented house on the beach where some friends of ours are staying. We always travel on holidays in this country it seems. For the life of of me, I cannot remember if we did this in the States. Usually New Years was spent at a friend's house, somewhere close by, or at home, and everyone would drink, have a designated driver home, and sleep it off starting at about 3AM, right?

I spent my last New Years before moving here in NYC's Time Square, just so I could say I did it (froze my ass off standing so far away you could hardly see the ball, for 6 hours in one place, with no way to get out or pee or eat or anything - no drinking either: this is what 9/11 accomplished for us). Last year when we traveled there again to visit, we spent our first New Years as a family in the NYC subway, somewhere in Harlem, trying to visit a friend's party by 12AM.

But for every holiday here, the question is usually "where?" as in another city instead of "what?" as in activity. For São João (in June) we travel to the country side and act likes hicks, drinking and dancing in the main square of some city we would never be in otherwise, and usually where we don't really know a soul who lives there. For minor holidays one might travel to a resort type of area - Guarajuba or Praia do Forte, and spend the weekend. We never want to stay home it seems, enjoy our our surroundings we work so hard to preserve.

Or maybe it's to further avoid cleaning and looking at the mess we have created while the maid is on vacation.

Tuh-oh = turtle. Ju has several small plastic turtles we take to the pool as swimming goals. When he finds one he picks it up and tells us it's a tuh-oh.

Mee-mee = movie/ filme. Usually only one in particular...

Boys and cars....

One of the first things Ju was able to name besides us and the cats was CAR. Cah-oh. Carro.

About a month ago my father sent the movie "Cars." I hadn't actually heard of it before, although products based on it have been flooding my preschool classroom since October. Ju has always be into cars, seems to be a genetic predisposition. He never had any cars really, nothing with wheels, until his nanny told me he liked very much to play with a car-like toy that belongs to his friend Mari, so we went out and bought him one of his own. For months it was almost the only thing he would play with, pushing it around in front of him as he crawled (when he was about 10 months or so).

For his first birthday, one of my good friends gave him a hotwheels she found in her house (she has two grown boys). It was an instant addiction. He would empty a whole box of little toys just to get out the hotwheels and play with it, stand next to the foot stool and "drive" it on the top. It was one of the few toys I took to the States and back, tied to a piece of BomFim tape to save my self from chasing around the floor of the plane when he threw it into the air. While State's side, he acquired a number of new toys, the favorites all having wheels (or related - one of the most popular toys I found for him was a V-tech Baby Driver steering wheel from the 80's).

When we returned, I was "forced" to buy him another hotwheels on two occations that I was out shopping and had to get something to appease him in the cart. Each time he chose orange ones. His father got him large plastic shiny trucks for Children's day presents, and my mother in law sent a Tonka tow truck that I tried to save for Xmas, but he found it and dragged it around in the box until it was liberated.

Now with the arrival of this movie, the obsession is getting worse. Every morning he asks for his "mee-mee cah-oh." And he will proceed to sit down and watch it almost without interruption. It is quite amazing, considering television never interested him for more than 10 minutes until now. While watching he gets all his hotwheels out (Santa filled his stocking with them this year - a motorcycle that is by far the favorite, another orange car that he chose, a bulldozer, a helicopter, and a by-plane) and drives them around, or just holds them in his hands, watching in awe. It's cute and disturbing at the same time.

Is it genetic? Does having a pinto automatically destine you to become obsessed with all things that have wheels? What is the deal? I am pretty sure I didn't foster this based on society stereotypes, so what is it?

Wooooooooo......

Can you tell I am on vacation? Today, so far, I have showered and eaten. I am so productive!

Boo-beh-eez - Blueberries! Ju's favorite fruit (the dried version sent from the states, which is all we can get down here).

A correction on "mah-mão" - lava mão = wash hands, but also means soap in general.

Bah-ee - bike/trike

Tah -o : Towel

He is really trying to talk to me, but it all just sounds like Japanese right now. Except, of course, for the words in the dictionary listed here.

Ju is exploding in vocabulary. He likes to say/imitate all words that end in "ees" - keys, peas.... He also says "juush" when he wants juice. I know what is comming now, just like all big steps: you wait so long for them to talk and then you wish they would shut up.

Bap-pish: Lapiz = crayon. And the crowning achievement with this new word was that when I came home and he said it and I didn't understand and I told him I didn't, he went and got the crayons and showed me what he meant. So smart.

Additional Ju words:

Ow: agua = water in any form, puddle, pool, drinkable or otherwise

Boo-bay: Blueberry - a favorite dry fruit sent by kind grandparents in the States.

He seems to go in and out of wanting to imitate words and not. Some days he says things like "tattoo" but other days he just stares at me. Today he said boo-bay.

Besides saying "gato, Neta, papai, mamãe, mommy, pé, rua" Ju is producing a lot more language than previously understood.

A dictionary of understanding Ju:

OOOOOO-vah: Uva = grape

Ah-poo: apple or any white fruit that you have to cut up (this includes pears) - you'll notice this is the only word besides boob that he uses English

Boo: Boob/ I want a boob to suck on

Too-tah: Ducha = shower and also "I am ready for a nap" since he takes a shower before sleeping

Oh-ão: Avião = airplane or anything else in the sky

Mah-mão: Lava mão = wash my hands/ my hands are dirty/ I want a napkin to wipe my hands

Toh-toh: (I think) cocó = poop/ my diaper is dirty/ I want to take off my diaper

Pehshhhhh: Peixe = fish

Cah-o: Carro = car or anything with wheels

Pah-pah-poo: pato = duck

Pah-pah-too: Sapato = shoe or sandle or anything that goes on your feet

Oof: Lixo = something that goes in the trash, like a peice of paper or lint

Also to be noted: all finger puppets say "tchucka tchucka tchucka" for some reason. And "tugudah tugudah" may mean "agua e gas chegou" or it just might mean "truck."

It seems he has figured out I speak Portuguese, and everyone else is speaking Portuguese, so there is no real need for him to say things in English, since English is something that one person will understand versus the other 10 or so important people in his life, so Portuguese seems to be the way to go.

I can almost feel the year ending, already! All I want to do is put up Xmas decorations. No snow or wood smoke smell to put me in the mood - I wish this stuff wasn't so damn expensive here!

Thanks to Nads for sending me this - this is as Thanksgiving as I can get today.

The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven

The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there'd never been turkey before.

It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn't a way I could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped!