manners maketh the bean

the past couple of weeks has been very exciting for the bean...and dh and i too.

we had dh's youngest brother and his girlfriend over from the uk to stay with us. our party was later enlarged by the addition of dh's parents so the bean could get reaquainted with her ye ye and nai nai. the last time she saw all of them was a year ago when she turned 1, but because of skype sessions and phone calls, she was quite familiar with ye ye and nai nai's faces and voices, so it didn't take her long to bond with them. however, it was quite different with her uncle william as she had only seen his photos and had hardly spoken to him. i don't think she can remember anything of him and was rather scared/shy for the first 2 days. she didn't have a problem becoming friendly with his girlfriend though. it's interesting that she is more at ease with women in general. i guess it's social conditioning - she spends all her time with me and when we go to our playgroups and classes it's usually the mummies or female carers with other children.

anyhow, with all the adult attention the bean has begun picking up more and more new words and is stringing together more sentences, as well as using phrases in the right context.

some new vocabulary:
- superdooper ("hooper dooper")
- fantastic ("fan tash teek")
- holiday

we've been trying to inculcate some good manners in her as well: to thank someone when he/she does something for her, to use "please" for requests etc. and it appears that this is paying off...not all the time, but it's becoming obvious that she is not an impolite child.
e.g. last evening, without being prompted, she said "thank you nai nai" (pronounced "sang kew nai nai") after her granny read her some stories.