My baby’s growing up… He’s not a newborn anymore.
Cygnet has reached the stage of being insufficiently immobile to leave on the bed. We discovered that he’d pivoted 180˚ about his head—which given I’d put him near the centre of the bed, put him disturbingly close to the edge.
So this evening, Puggle helped me put the cot back together.
I haven’t kept a list this week… there have just been too many new words. She’s regularly using two word sentences, and occasionally three. She combines words and signs for new meanings (shaking her head while saying a word to indicate the opposite, using ‘where’ in sign while naming what she has lost).
As long as I can see her, I can have a lengthy conversation about surprisingly involved things:-)
Of course, there are still some sounds that elude her, which means there are still a number of words which sound almost identical:-) And for new words, it can be hard to pick what they are (dwanny, for example… I worked it out eventually, but it took longer than I would have liked…)
Exterminate! (em-em-ay!)
honey
what?
stamp
water (wa-wa)
singlet (sing-ing)
plate
done
phone
This has been a week of many one-off words (but clearly of her own volition, rather than merely repeating sounds). So many that I haven’t been able to keep up… (In fact, had it not been for her first new word this week, I wouldn’t have posted… but we’re such fans… I had to share:-) )
I really enjoy reading The Pioneer Woman. A lot of the recipes she makes work for me—because she doesn’t use ‘exotic’ ingredients (US specific) like a lot of other US sites. So I’m a regular reader of her cooking pages. I’ve even made a few.
Of course, the ones I’ve decided to make regularly, do use not-easily findable ingredients:-( So here’s what I actually do.
Chicken Spaghetti (based on the recipe from The Pioneer Woman, hers is supposed to serve 6, but I’ve cut it down a bit and now it serves about 6 of us:-) )
2 cups chicken, cooked (this is one of my ‘using up leftover chicken’ recipes)
2 cups stock, chicken
500 grams spaghetti, thin
2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 1/2 cups milk (to replace 600 milliliters Cream of Mushroom soup, (2 cans) )
1/2 onion, grated
1 capsicum, green, diced
1 capsicum, red, diced (instead of the pimentos we can get, but have to search out)
2 cups cheese, cheddar, grated
1 teaspoon seasoned salt—dash of paprika, garlic, turmeric and onion powder with some salt (instead of the Lawry’s seasoned salt)
cayenne pepper
pepper
salt
1 cup cheese, cheddar, grated (extra, for the top)
Dice the green capsicum, red capsicum and grate onion.
Next, break the thin spaghetti into pieces until you have around 2 1/2 to 3 cups.
Cook the spaghetti pieces in boiling chicken stock to cook (water with a little stock powder).
Allow the spaghetti to cook for several minutes, until very al dente (or, until it still has a nice “bite” to it.) You do NOT want to overcook the spaghetti, as you’ll be baking the dish again later.
Meanwhile, make a white sauce of the butter, flour and milk (be sure to warm the milk). Add the chicken stock. Sprinkle on the seasonings (dash of paprika, garlic, turmeric and onion powder with some salt, pepper and cayenne pepper). Add the chicken, the capsicum, the onion and the grated cheese.
Now, place the cooked spaghetti into a casserole dish.
Stir thoroughly, then take a bite and check your seasonings. Add a little salt if needed, a little more pepper, and maybe a little more Cayenne if you didn’t have enough the first time around. Make sure it’s seasoned enough!
And top with an additional 1 cup of grated sharp cheddar.
Bake it at 180˚C for 35 to 45 minutes until hot & bubbly.
Notes:
This can be frozen, unbaked. Or you can cover it and refrigerate it, unbaked, for up to two days before baking. I actually prefer it about a day after it’s been cooked… the ’sauce’ is just a more pleasing texture.
Today’s task was to help cook Gingerbread.
We didn’t quite get to this in a timely fashion. Mostly because they were so taken with the card making:-) In the end, I made the dough (I did remember to add more ginger to this batch, we’ll see how it goes) and they will play with it tomorrow.
rabbit
spill
wind
hose
Jane
Spoon
Playschool
dinner
side
hand (when she wants to hold your hand)
swing (fwing)
straw
knife (fife)
cut
bandaid (ba-band)
rain (ra-rain)
hey
which way?/that way (wa-way)
? (That’s the sort?) (das sa sor)
photo (fofo)
A (her brother, a-n)
press
date
gate
half
full
soap
boat
see
Happy
So this morning, I had a flat tyre… only noticed it after I had the kids loaded and was on the way to co-op (well, I was still in the driveway—thankfully.)
Eventually called the RAC. I had left the kids in the car while I tried getting the spare out—and Cygnet woke up, wanting to nurse:-( Then, he settled! He found his fists and was sucking on them:-) Definitely made life easier to not have to feed him in the middle:-)
(Puggle reports each morning once he’s received his morning grin from Cygnet—it’s still noteworthy:-) )
(I’m struggling to keep up at the moment! She seems to be constantly trying out new words… it’s a fun time:-) She’s also begun (last week? this week?) to use some two word sentences.)
shirt
plane
closed
face
rain
machine
Mama, I would like to do it myself! (MEE!)
sand
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven (she’s had two and four since around her birthday)
Uncle S. (sayn)
work (oo-er)
balloon is now two syllables (ba-oo)
sing
wipe
shop
Our progress for
Week 4, Block 9, Edith Term
We’ve finished!
We completed Winnie-the-Pooh, and the poems, and the phonemes!
We still haven’t finished all the Aesop’s Fables—but there’s a lot in the book and I wasn’t sure we’d get through them all in any case. We’ll just keep reading them next year:-)
We’re still singing quite a lot of the nursery rhymes and folksongs we’ve sung at different times.
But, finished:-)
Our progress for
Week 3, Block 9, Edith Term
Puggle was rather taken with ‘If I Were King’:-) He’s also really enjoying ‘Clementine’ and ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’:-)
I’m having trouble getting the words of Stultus Simon to fit the tune… but I should get it soon—I hope!
Today, we had absolute grins (rather than just smiles):-)
And even better, they were in response to our smiles. I think Paddington and I had the first ‘directed’ grins—but Puggle and Bilby have had more…
She’s been on a bit of a language blitz this week! I should point out these are words she’s using, rather than simply able to say… although, I do often ask her to repeat a new word to see if that’s what it is she’s trying to say:-)
Both
Bear
Fly
flower
spice (for spicy, hot)
floor
sore
thankyou (da-doo, this isn’t new, but it’s a change in pronunciation)
oh, why? (a particular whiny tone)
stuck
roll
bag
shorts
fluff (fuff… a fart… Which Puggle proceeded to use in the sense of a swear word! Rather amused and appalled Paddington and I!)
Her name (she either skips the first letter, or uses an R)
Roll
Baw (her uncle)
(I think this is the week she started with Bird)
Week 1, Block 8, Edith Term
Didn’t do as much as we might… getting back into the swing of things will probably take a little longer yet.
by A. A. Milne
by Andrew Lang
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