New couch and lots of videos

We finally bought a couch! It's an IKEA combination bed-couch, a section pulls out to turn the L into a []. We decided we needed to get a more permanent bed after our first air mattress developed a slow leak, and the replacement we bought leaked the first time we tried it!


Fun games with toilet paper rolls. Here it's an extra long nose, and in the next one Clara's being a pirate!



Here's a video of Clara doing one of her favorite activities - putting things in the trash. You can hear her say "Müll" (garbage) and later "door."



Update: watching the video again I wonder whether she's saying "door" or "Tür," German for "door." German words are often so similar to English that we're not sure which language she's using. "Book" vs "Buch," "apple" vs "Apfel," "more" vs "nochmal," (Clara usually just says "mal" when she means "nochmal") "ball" vs "Ball" (the pronounciation is different). What do you think, "door" or "Tür"?

I took a bunch of videos this week, and they're cute but I'm not sure everyone is interested in seeing them. Here are the links for anyone who can't get enough Clara: Dancing on a stepping stool, playing the alphabet game, saying "I love you" on her toy phone, reading a book, and playing with a door.

We have a great book called "Emma weint" (Emma cries), in which a series of terrible things happen to poor Emma, making her cry. Her ice cream drops off the cone, she fights over a toy, she wakes up in the middle of the night, etc. In the end she sits on her Mom's lap, and instead of crying now she feels better (although her nose is still running because she was just crying). At first I didn't really like the book, but Clara likes it, and it's amazing how it helps her calm down when she's crying.

When Clara cries we often get "Emma weint," sit her on our lap, and go through the book slowly. By the end Clara is never crying anymore! Tanja always says that toddlers have really strong emotions and don't really understand why they feel the way they do. They don't have a name for the feelings, and they don't know how to express why they're upset to themselves or others. So "giving them words" by telling them why they're upset is supposed to (and in my experience seems to) help. This book is very much in that vein.

On one of the pages in the book Emma cries because her daddy is leaving for work (on a bicycle!), "Tschüss, Emma! Auf Wiedersehn. Nein, Papa, du sollst nicht gehn!" One time when Tanja was reading the book to Clara, she asked Clara where Emma's mommy is, and expected Clara to turn to the last page showing Emma and her mommy snuggling. Instead, Clara turned very deliberately to the picture of "Papa" leaving for work on a bike, pointed, and said "Mama!" I guess with our non-traditional household we've successfully transcended gender stereotypes...

Anyway, my initial misgivings were totally overcome. "Emma weint" is a great book and I can't recommend it enough to anyone looking for a book to give to a toddler.