sentences

We're living in that frustrating stage when the Vassariños have desires, and often strong ones, but not always the words to express them.  We're fairly good at guessing, but those times we're amiss are trying times.  

Rafa still doesn't have a whole lot of interest in expressing in words when he's upset, but that's not surprising.  Sylvia has, for awhile, always tattled on whatever has made her upset.  She'll cry a little and come up to us and say, "badabadabadabada PISO!"  Which means, "I stumbled and fell on the floor!" or, "My cup fell on the floor!"  Needless to say, it's often "badabadabadabada RAFA!"  We try really hard when they want something and just start crying to tell them to ask us, "Por favor mami, ayúdame..."  That's going to be a long battle, I'm certain.  We at least have one success with getting Sylvia to not just cry when she wants help.  After she finishes buckling her booster chair, she used to just pull to try to get them apart and cry because she was unsuccessful urging us to come to her rescue.  So, every time, I would respond with, "No llores, Sylvia, solamente necesitas decir, Por favor mami, ayúdame, quiero hacerlo otra vez."  (Don't cry, Sylvia, all you have to say is, please mami, help me, I would like to do it one more time.)  OK, so that's a lot for a 1 year old.  But, I feel great success in that she doesn't cry anymore, she just says to me, "Otra vez!"  Baby steps.

Rafa's fun attempt at stringing words together is related to the Vassariños' current favorite word, "GRANDE!"  Everything is grande.  Houses, trucks, pieces of food, heavy things, even things that aren't really all that big, they just want to say, "GRAAAAAANDE!" Rafa gets the most mileage at breakfast when he feeds himself oatmeal.  He'll sometimes get a super sized hunk on his spoon and say, "DA DA DA GRANDE!"  Which, we're fairly certain isn't a stutter, but him trying to say, "Está grande!" which is what we say all the time since we use verbs most of the time. 

I'd love to get some of this on video, but in the meantime, I definitely want to share and preserve some of their favorite "sentences."