tonight as i tucked aliyah into bed i asked her if she'd still love me when she was 25 years old. she hugged my head, sighed, and said, "i'll try not to forget you."

july 13, 2011 | 86th monthly portrait

a first

today aliyah licked an envelop for the first time. you wonder how many more times she'll do that in her lifetime.

after sealing the envelop she asked me if our tongues are sticky like (birds who build) birdnests.

it was also her first time to make mail for someone. she drew three drawings for layla, enna-marie and scarlett, put them in envelops and addressed each to the girls. when she was done, she gathered the letters and said, "i'm going to give these to my lovely ladies. my lovely friends.. " and hugged the letters. mail truly sent with love.

language

i have a feeling aliyah's unique vocabulary will disappear when we move to the states and she's surrounded by native english speaking kids. so for now, i'm enjoying my favorite expressions of hers like "nester' for "next to" Usually she's telling someone that she likes,

"i wanna sit nester you."

dreams

this morning aliyah woke up and told me she was dreaming that her hair was so long that it touched the ground.

hot iced tea on a sick day

aliyah's home from school today with a cold.

i asked her if she wanted some chaee ("tea" in farsi)

and she said, "no. i want some hot iced tea."

aliyah at five

big things like first tooth falling and starting kindergarten are easy to remember, but the little things that happen so frequently you almost don't notice them anymore can be forgotten, such as:



language

• aliyah makes her past tense by putting "was" before everything. was be, was go, was say... "mommy! iiiii was saaaaay, i am eating it!" i'm now correcting her and she's starting to say the verbs correctly, but it's been sweet to enjoy while it was happen. :)


• american idol: "amiracle idol"


• "next time" for anything in the future, whether it be later, tomorrow or next month.


• "traffic" in farsi is the same word but with a french-like accent. so when she tosses the persian pronunciation it into her english speech there's a bit of sophistication that's so beautiful.
• aliyah rarely refers to keon by name (though she does address him by name). instead she says "my brahder" with a strange swedish accent

movement

• when she runs in the house whether it be to go put on her pajamas or get to the toilet in time, she ever so slowly and daintily flaps her arms like she's a fairy in flight. it's funny when her legs are scampering but her arms are smoothly fluttering.

habits

• aliyah's routine in the morning is to get ready before keon and i are ready in order to "watch elmo" (go on sesamestreet.com and play games and watch videos).


• when keon and i are ready, aliyah always unlocks and opens the door and presses the elevator button.


• for some reason she always pushes the coffee table flush against the sofa when she watches a video in the living room.


• every day she eats cucumbers, carrots and cherry tomotoes as part of her school snack.

these are the little things that make up much of our days.

when i grow up

the other day i was driving aliyah to school before taking keon to the speech therapist (or 'doctor' as i refer to the therapist to aliyah) and after several minutes of being quiet she said,

"mommy, when i be big and a mommy and keon be big like a daddy, how do i take him to the doctor?"

our boy is in good hands. :)

hide and seek

last week aliyah and layla played some good ol' fashion "hide and seek" except aliyah didn't quite get it. when layla would count, aliyah would find a hiding place and then call out, "ok! i'm hiding!" or "come find me!" if i managed to keep her from announcing where she was, it was hard not to hear her giggles and chuckles knowing layla was looking for her.

layla would find her and usually tell her, "that's not a good hiding place, aliyah." so today when layla suggested to aliyah and zane, "let's play hide and seek!" aliyah said, "ok, but layla, can you tell me where to hide?"

now aliyah and layla are hiding together while zane counts. only thing is that first they hide and then call out to zane from the laundry room, behind the curtain or under the table, "ok zane! START COUNTING!"

i'm sure they'll get it eventually.

proud child

aliyah's english is inching along (as is her farsi, italian, hebrew and now, sign language). she definitely understands that "proud" means an intense feeling of joy and satisfaction. today she told us, "mommy and papa, i'm so very proud of you for taking me to the beach today."

it was her first visit to the beach this year.

strong

today aliyah saw a video clip of an extremely obese woman whose arms had several rolls of fat on them. her reaction: "mommy, she's so strong!" she thought the rolls of fat were muscles like on her hercules action figure. always nice to see her fresh and innocent perception of things.

ayyam-i-ha 2009

aliyah celebrated ayyam-i-ha this year at a party for the bwc families where she ate pizza, played with balloons, and had her nails painted for the first time.

aliyah and U2

aliyah likes many different types of music and sometimes loves a song after only hearing it once or twice. today, while listening to the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon, aliyah stopped her conversation with enna-marie in the back seat of the car and said, "mommy, i like this music." that made mommy smile. :)



















aliyah also has a couple of faves from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb:
#5 (city of blinding lights; she calls the songs by their track numbers) which she always reminds me that she loved when she was a baby (i told her she used to sing along with the bells she was little) and
#1 (vertigo) which she thinks is just fun.

playing with enna-marie

aliyah and enna-marie were playing with the kitchen in aliyah's room and enna said, "i'll be auntie negeen..." aliyah said, "i'll be auntie menchie and you be papa maarten." then aliyah came out of her room to inform me, "you are enna-marie."

before i could get my camera to shoot them at the kitchen, they had moved to a doctor's office where aliyah was checking aliyah's vitals.

good times.

zoo trip!

today kids were out of school for rosh hashanah (jewish new year) so aliyah and a bunch of her friends got to go to the zoo with their moms. :) there she rode a pony, fed a rabbit and saw some of her favorite animals including flamingos, "pinguini", zebras, elephants and monkeys. the best part was that she got to enjoy it with her good friends. more photos on flickr

...

after numerous attempts and sleepless nights, i am so happy that aliyah has been pacifier-free for over a month! we'd tried a number of techniques and efforts were interrupted by trips, new places, colds and jet lag, but what finally did it was the appearance of Sleeping Fairy. this orange-haired fairy doll that i'd bought at the dollar store in oklahoma turned out to be just what aliyah needed to get through the transition. sleeping fairy would come out of her drawer with three accessories: a brush, a purse and a wand. with the brush, aliyah first had to brush sleeping fairy's hair. with the purse she had to sprinkle magic sparkles onto sleeping fairy. then sleeping fairy would hold her wand and tell aliyah she had to do three things: "number one, aliyah must put her head on the pillow" and the fairy would wave her wand and aliyah would do it. the second thing she had to do was go under the covers. and the third was to close her eyes.
miraculously, the first night sleeping fairy came out, aliyah closed her eyes and slept with not so much a whimper or a whine.

that first night sleeping fairy stayed in alyah's hand while she slept.
















the next morning aliyah was so happy about her own accomplishment.
















night two: sleeping fairy came back, immediate shut eye, but sleeping fairy had her own covers and sat while aliyah quietly fell asleep.

the poser

in her own world