telephones and video chats....

Johari is starting to add to her verbal repertoire. She is saying "dog" now. Which sounds more like "og". I also finally started to put together her "Who Loves Baby?" photo album. She likes to look at and point at everyone while I say each person's name. She even had her baby doll looking at it and pointing at each person as well. So she is attempting a few names at this point. She tries to say Zola but it comes out as just her tongue going lalala without any sound at all. She tries to say Cec-y, sometimes it just sounds like "ssss" but today it sounded a little more like cecy. When she is trying to say Mia, it ends up sounding like "mama".
We have discovered the joy of rubbing noses. It is great fun. You should really do some nose rubbing with someone today...as long as they don't have the cooties, of course.
I am really in my reading mode right now. Those times when I just wish I had a ton of time to read because there is a lot that I would like to absorb right now. And then I have lulls in my reading drive as well. But now is one of those times on high without a whole lot of time to read in a day. A few minutes here and few minutes there. So I am reading Playful Parenting and I have been working on A Girl Who Married a Lion which is short stories from Zimbabwe and Botswana written by Alexander McCall-Smith. I also just started Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health for when I am downstairs and have a few moments to read. All of them have me thinking about parenting and being the daughter that I am and the relationships that we have with people. And the amount of ourselves that we are willing to give in our play with each other and in particular with the children in my life.
I just got back in touch with a friend from the school that I taught at in Tanzania. She is working at a Baha'I school in Canada not too far from here. We got to chat and catch up a bit last night. It was good to hear about how various people are doing. And wonderful to speak to her. I hope that I can go visit her in Canada in the next couple of months. It made me feel good to get to talk to her for a bit though. I went to bed in a good mood.
Now Johari and I have done 2 video chats together. She was extremely shy on the first one. And was a bit apprehensive on her second video chat but she was able to be brought out a bit by the chatter...Silly Sarah. A few funny faces and some fun words got her smiles going. Did we have to figure out what the phone technology was when we were toddlers or did people not think to put the phone to our ears back then? I don't remember trying to figure out what the heck a phone was and why was someone talking to me but not there. It is interesting that she pretends with phones all of the time...in the bath tub today she had a whole lot of calls coming into her old school phone rattle. But when I put the phone to her ear with Mia or anyone else talking to her, she gets an incredibly intense look on her face and seems a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing.
I have to run.....mama time is over for now.