Announcement for Chapter 7: 1/1/02

The latest update to Sarah's website, sporting 37 new and recent pictures [age 12-16 months] for "Chapter 7: It's A Jolly Holiday with Sarah; In Which Our Heroine Celebrates Sukkot, Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Jul (Danish Christmas)" is now available.

Sarah is Right On The Verge of walking. Just last week she started casting off our helping fingers and careening down the hallway a dozen drunken but solo steps before flinging herself into someone's arms. (It helped that MorMor and OldeMor's house actually has a hallway; our house is too small.)

Her vocabulary is also taking off. She still uses quite a few signs (see SarahSigns.htm) but now that she can point and say "Yes" and "No" so clearly we spend a lot of time playing "20 Questions" to ascertain her commands for us, her majesty's handmaidens. Anything we name, she tries to name too -- shoes, oranges, outside, backpack ("bahpah!"), even toboggan ("abo!"). Her favourite verb is "Draw!" In the adjective department she's working on colours and temperatures ("orange" and "hot" are her faves). She can imitate all the farm animals' sounds, and loves songs and nursery rhymes, especially Ba Ba Black Sheep, which we must sing at least two zillion times a day (she warbles "Ba Ba" and "Yessir Yessir").

As far as Sarah is concerned there is only one TV show, which is Teletubbies. LaLa is her favourite (ours too); she has the doll, bath toy, & coloring book. To prepare her for our Christmas trip to Jackson Hole (to see my mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle & cousin), we watched the "Teletubbies Christmas in the Snow" video many many times. Our favourite part of it shows Finnish children singing and miming a "traditional Finnish Christmas Song" which we think may be a tale of reindeer debauchery drinking glogg. Sarah loves to sing along with the chorus "Klip Klop Klip Klop Klippe Klippe Klip Klop". All the Finnish kids are wearing red hats & tunics with grey leggings, like Jule Nisse (Danish Christmas house-elves). So my dear cousin Nina completely thrilled Sarah by making her a Klip Klop Nisse costume. Her first experience of Dress-Up was a big hit.