Sunday, November 18, 2012

Smiley two-year-old

Smiley two-year-old by kevsunblush
Smiley two-year-old, a photo by kevsunblush on Flickr.

Last week China held their National Party Congress to elect a new leader. One of the results was a big crackdown on VPNs, what we use to access Facebook, blogs, or other websites not in favor in China. The Congress is over and we've been hoping for the VPN to start working again, but so far no such luck. In this week of silence, when we have been effectively shut off from the outside virtual world and had to resort to email to contact others. Kevin can still get to all his fantasy sports web pages, an activity which apparently poses no threat to China, but I'm more of a Facebook/blog girl myself. Something important could have happened in a friend's life and I'd never know since they'd just assume I saw it on Facebook. Of course probably all I'm missing is pictures of the food people ate and some inconsequential moments of their lives, but you never know. Somehow I have survived the internet withdrawal, sitting at the computer realizing there is nothing left to do except...study Chinese. Rough.

In our non-virtual, unrecorded world (sometimes referred to as reality), Juliana has been busy absorbing the kindness/politeness messages she has been receiving.

A few days ago I saw her standing over Dolly, who was lying on the floor. She fastened her serious gaze on Dolly and said, “Do you need help? Use your words. 'Help please.'” To my knowledge Dolly did not use her words, but Juliana picked her up anyway.

The next day I heard her yelling, “Stop! Don't hit!” I walked in to see her slap her left hand with her right, then turn to her left hand and say, “No hitting!” She repeated the scenario with the opposite hand until they were both thoroughly chastised.

Today Juliana was talking and laughing to herself in the mirror. She and mirror baby were having quite a nice time until she gave mirror baby a stern look and said, “No! Too loud!” I don't think it harmed their relationship too much though, because in another minute they were back to playing peek-a-boo.

She may not quite have the actions down yet, but it's funny to hear her mimic the things I say.

(p.s. We can't actually get to our blog either, so this blog is brought to you in a round-about way through flickr.)

2 comments:

Candy said...

Juliana is just so adorable! I can't wait to see her again!!!

Anna said...

Haha, that's really funny. I'm glad that she is learning to be nice to herself (and hopefully other people too). I'm sure it's pretty amusing to watch. You should try to get a video of it sometime. =)