The Anya Report

I realized I haven't given an update on local toddler progress in a while.

What we're interested in:

• airplanes (toy airplanes, the sound of real airplanes, the idea of and pretending to take a trip on an airplane, recalling our recent airplane trips...)
  
• any small household or mundane item (e.g. cheap satin Chinese purses, empty plastic wet-wipe bottles, trial sized tubes of lotion, earplugs and their cases, plastic eggs that were given on the Easter egg hunt, sunglasses -- Anya can develop a fetishistic interest in playing with these things from the moment she sees them)
• trucks (esp. cement trucks, the yellow-with-red-striped vans that I think are connected to the Dushanbe city gas department and sit parked outside its offices on the route we take to sadik [see photo], marshrutka vans, and really any other type of civilian or military truck you might see on a Dushanbe street)

• the turtle in our yard
• Steve from "Blue's Clues" (esp. when he draws the clue in his "handy-dandy notebook." When he sits in his red "thinking chair" registers a close second.)
• the tiny toy watering can that came with the cheapo and too small beach/sand toys I bought last week
  
• real pens (esp. push-button ones), and using them to draw caterpillars (short or medium or long squiggly lines)
  

What we're doing:

• staying dry (fingers crossed. It took about 2 and a half weeks, but all of a sudden this potty training thing kind of took hold, and she is pretty much choosing -- mostly correctly -- when to use the toilet!)
  
• telling complex stories (for instance -- although this one is already a few weeks old -- about how she got locked in the bathroom and couldn't unlock it, "and Anya was crying. And Surayo said 'ne plach' [don't cry].' And Surayo was looking at you through the window. And mommy was telling you to turn the silver knobby thing. And the guys came and opened the door (...)." Quite an experience. All turned out OK when the person we called for help figured out that in fact the keys to the upstairs bathroom [which we had tried already] did open the downstairs bathroom door. You just have to put the key in only part way.)
• actually, not confusing "you" and "I" as much as the slightly outdated story above would have you believe
• nodding and shaking our heads (instead of saying "yes" and "no" -- it's so much more fun!)

What we're saying:

• "Anya's a big girl when Anya has a really big bite!"
• Friday = "French Fry Day"
• "When the doggies bark they say 'hewoh! hewoh! hewoh!" (Daddy's explanation for a phenomenon that has begun to loom very large for Anya just as she is going to bed. I personally get more annoyed with our neighborly rooster that seems to crow constantly, but I guess you can't choose your pet peeves.)
• "Anya has human hands. Bear has bear paws. Doggies have doggy paws." (Inspired by a new bedtime favorite: Dan's rendition of Elvis Costello's "Human Hands." Especially pleasing: the line where he says "whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt...")