The little girl's cousin now starts her journey

[Reporter]

Cousin 4's grandmas take turns babysitting her.

Her mom couldn't understand why Cousin 4 seemed so hydrated after a week with the paternal grandparents'. We gave her several glasses of water and she drank them all in one session.

Then I realized the paternal grandparents couldn't understand her when Cousin 4 asked for npwv npws.

We had to call them up and tell them to watch for those words next time Cousin 4 is with them again.

The maternal grandmother reported last week that when they saw a dead squirrel on the road, Cousin 4 said "nav nas." "We know Reporter taught her that word," she said to Cousin 4's mother. "But she also said 'shhhh....' I think she thought the squirrel was taking a nap."

[Believe_N_Me]

...cute.

[Reporter]

  Yeah.

[Reporter]

I have a small apple tree in my backyard that has started producing apples last year.

Because Big Girl is the oldest of these toddler girls, I wanted her to pick the first apple from this tree. I told her that. But she wasn't too crazy about picking fruits.

Cousin 4 couldn't speak yet and didn't quite know how to grab an apple yet. But because her mom kept dropping her off to me, I put her hand over an apple and picked it that way.

This year, she came back and went out there and picked the first apple herself for me.

This will  happen again next year.

[Reporter]

Cousins 2 and 3 visited today just as I was babysitting Big Girl's little sister after a wedding that was taking too much of Big Girl's mother's times.

I told Cousins 2 and 3 that I wanted them each to pick one apple from the backyard tree, because the bees and ants have been cutting into them.

Cousin 3 quickly put her shoes on and descended the deck towards the tree, picked the reddest one and brought it back to my kitchen. She didn't eat it but I did.

Cousin 2 was reluctant and said "nawh. I don't want to pick one."

There are only four left as of right now.

Meanwhile, Big Girl's sister was playing on the deck by a water pail.

Cousin 2 said to me: "R, could you make sure she doesn't try to go down the steps?"

I said I would lock up the gate to the steps and that the little girl wouldn't know how to open the gate anyway.

What surprised me was that Cousin 3 didn't say anything about Big Girl's little sister's safety anymore. She has been telling me to help Cousin 4 all these times. But this time Cousin 2 was the one telling me to watch over the little cousin.

Sounds like they are guardians to different cousins.

[Reporter]

Big Girl and  her little sister stayed overnight last night because her mom and her step-dad needed some times alone.

This morning, their mom called and said she was going to pick them up for pho around 11 am.

Big Girl insisted that I make ramen noodles for her still--around 10 a.m.

I asked why. I asked if she was still going to go get pho with her mommy and she said yes. I asked why eat ramen just before that. She said she didn't know but that she still wanted ramen before pho. I told her she could just make ramen and that I had ramen noodle packets for her. She's 12 now. But she said she wanted me to make it  how I had always made it for her when she was younger.

"Hot pepper or no," I asked as I was setting up the pot and tearing up the packet.

"No," she said as she was walking towards the restroom.

When I was done, both Big Girl and the little sister sat on the table to the bowls. The little sister wanted to feed me, too, but I insisted on feeding her. She could hardly pick up any noodle with her fork yet.

[Reporter]

Cousin 4 became ill suddenly last night and had a visit to the hospital. The doctor said it was dehydration, so they gave her some fluids through an IV line and also advised that we give her lots of water.

Big Girl, however, has been watching and reading Japanese practices and said she would fold 1,000 paper cranes to heal Cousin 4. "We will need more papers than just for one thousand cranes," she said. "That's because I know I'll make some mistakes along the way."

My apple tree has just three fruits left. We've picked some and some have fallen. At the start, there were over 30 fruits budding on those branches. But I've found out that bees and ants have been drawing their juice,  too. So, all the little girls had their chances to pick one each. I picked the last good one yesterday and ate it.

We don't put chemicals on the tree and so the bugs have no problem cutting into the apples.

These two fell and Cousin 3 picked them up onto the deck. The bees are have cut into them and are still in them, sucking away.

[Reporter]

The cultural practice of the elders have come upon Big Girl.

When Hmong people have a large project to do, they spread the responsibiliti es among the relatives. Weddings require joint efforts to cook and set up, for examples. Funerals require paper-folding, animal sacrifices, cooking and the like.

Well, once I knew it, Big Girl has already contacted all of the cousins--Cousins 1, 2, and 3, except Cousin 4's infant sister. On Facetime, she showed them how to fold the cranes the Japanese way. Cousin 1, the only boy but older at 14 now, could fold very quickly. But Cousin 2 had to do it over and over.

Big Girl felt Cousin 3 was still a bit young to do all that, since she has just completed kindergarten this past spring.

I'm of a different opinion, however. I know that Cousin 3 is very smart and responsible. She senses things we don't even teach her about. She can fold these cranes. So, I'll make Big Girl delegate the responsibility to her as well.

I will learn some origami. But Big Girl says she just wants me to hang them up at Cousin 4's house once they are all made.

I've agreed to that.

The rest of the family adults have been kept out of this somehow. It's a kid project but they involve me because I've been too involved in Cousin 4's life. Anything for her just won't do without me.

[Reporter]

The Quadriga at the Minnesota State Capitol Building has 6 pounds of gold covering silver inside.

Cousins 2 and 3 and I didn't know that until we visited the  Capitol yesterday.

This is something Cousin 3 had wanted to see back in 2018, but I could not get all of the little girls together for one trip so that I wouldn't have to do separate trips there for each of them. I kept waiting for the right time for everyone. But that time never came and then Covid kicked in and the exhibits at the Capitol were closed.

The delay was so long that when the exhibits re-opened, their mom already saw the Quadriga without them.

I asked why she didn't take them with her. I was surprised they were only told that their mom's visit there and that she didn't take them along.  The whole family--nuclear and distant--knew for years now that Cousin 3 wanted to see the Quadriga so badly. She has consistently told their mom what she saw on the way each time the two siblings went to work with me.

But Cousin 2 said that their mom could take only her students and not family members.

This summer I still have not been able to coordinate my times with all of the little girls' times.

But yesterday, the sister cousins' parents decided to leave them in my care. Their dad texted me the day before to see if I could watch over them for one day.

I agreed.

So, I felt I should just take the two there instead of taking the whole group. (Cousin 4 will have her visit, without or without Big Girl.)

I planned a little surprise for them by not telling them that I was taking them there.

A little after the lunch, I told them I was going to go to work and that they could not stay home alone and that they had to come with me.

They were already aware of that law: toddlers could not stay home alone.

They got ready quickly, and we drove by the Capitol Building for the 1:00 p.m. tour.

My workplace was downtown, so they were feeling I was just heading to work and driving by the Capitol like usual.
They screamed again like they have always done when they saw the Quadriga on top of the building.

"Do you want to see it closer?"  I asked.

"Yes," said Cousin 2.

Cousin 3 didn't say anything but was just marveling at the sight of Quadriga.

"Let me park the car and we go closer," I said.

I rushed them to the Capitol steps and towards the main door. We were running because it was near 1:00.

Once inside, the tour guide lady said we should wait in the hallway for a bit because she was expecting three more tourists that session. Two older ladies were already waiting in the hallway.

A 45-minute tour took us through the Rotunda (the North Star), the Senate and House chambers, the Governor's Press Conference room and various steps and a look at the center chandelier.

As we were walking around to these places, Cousin 3 told me, "My mom and her students went up to the Quadriga when they were here."

"We'll do that, too," I said.

Then the walk up onto the roof for the Quadriga commenced.

"I can't believe we are here," said Cousin 4.

[Reporter]

As we were turning back to go downstairs from the roof, Cousin 2 asked me if I might be late to work.

"I wanted to surprise you two," I said. "I took today off to bring you here. I'm not working today."

"Oh, I thought all these times that you might be late for work," she said and smiled. "I kept wondering why you didn't rush us to your work."

"It's okay. I wanted to bring you here finally," I said.

[Reporter]

Today, their mom dropped them off early in the morning to Big Girl's house to keep them there for the day, because their mom was having an open-house event at her school. She's a teacher.

News came to me that a turkey hen and her two chicks had come onto Big Girl's family's backyard.
 
When I got there to pick Cousins 2 and 3 up for home, I asked Cousin 3 to tell me what happened.

"Earlier, they were all here," she said, pointing to the lawn behind the house.

"The other sibling flew this way," Cousin 2 pointed to the woods on our left. "One flew this other way (pointing to the right.)

"Their mom flew all the way to this other side (our far left).

"They didn't come back, because Boo-Boo and Elsa were barking and running at them.

"I think they all went home to the dad."

Boo-Boo and Elsa are Big Girl's mom's two tiny pet dogs. (I don't know their breeds.)

I asked if there were only three of them and how she knew that was the mom and not the dad with the two turkey siblings.

"Their dad was staying home. He didn't come with them," she said.

[Reporter]

Big Girl's little sister came for a visit with the rest of the little girls today.

To please her thirst for activities, I had her scribble lines onto a piece of paper. But she insisted that I also do the same thing with her. Her "ae-ae" a few times and pointing to the paper were enough to give me that message.

So, I got my own piece of paper and we both scribbled chicken scratches onto our papers as we sat side-by-side, scribbling on the dining table.

Hers is on the yellow piece of paper. Mine is on the white page.

[Reporter]

Big Girl and Cousin 2 were doing their own thing on the student desk that I have set up for them since Big Girl was still a little girl. But I pulled Cousin 3 out from the living room to my personal desk.

"Why?" Big Girl asked.

"You two can do your things there. I need her to rewrite something a few times. She has misspelled something," I told them.

I was disturbed that Cousin 3 has written this:

"I luv u momy." (The paper was torn off before I could photograph it.)

I couldn't believe someone taught her that. So, I wrote two sentences for her to copy three times each.

I told her there's a period at the end of every sentence and that the comma should also be written before addressing the person she's talking to. "The thing that looks like a small caterpillar is called a comma," I said. "That dot is called a period."

Here, she had to do these:



She couldn't quite keep things straight. But she managed to tell me that she had to scratch a letter off on Number 2 of the second set of sentences. "I wrote it on top now. I scratched it off because it looked like a V. I wrote the U on top," she said and pointed to the U just above the word.

I said, "Okay."

I'm hanging her writings on my wall.

[Reporter]

Big Girl's little sister is just a little over a year old but has started walking and showing signs of an adult.

I remember her in her stroller chasing the other walking little girls around only to be disappointed when the stroller would get caught between walls in alleys that other girls had run right through.

She has made so much efforts to walk, many times falling and crying but she would continue to shakingly stand up on her long feet. Her balance slowly improved these last few months. Recently, she finally climbed onto a rectangular stool and held herself very steadily to make sure she didn't fall.

Yesterday, her parents dropped her off to me for a few hours. I put her on my non-revolving stool seat just to see what she would do. She sat there steadily with her feet on a lower seat while watching some videos on my computer screen. As her feet pushed that lower seat off balance, she sat still on the stool and said "uh, oh..." about the fallen seat.

We went outside to check on my backyard garden. I had her pick some still-green tomatoes. She picked one by holding onto it with her right hand, pulling as hard as she could on the tomato. the plant bent towards her, but I held it so that it would not break or fall. I had to break the vine stem  with my hand to let her succeed. But she took the tomato and started walking back into the house to put it away on the dining table.

We then went back out for three more. On the second and third, she was able to put twisting motions on the tomatoes but couldn't quite break off the stems yet. I had to help her break them off.

But that's a big start for her.



She does not like cartoon videos but real human videos. She points to the mouse when a cartoon is on. Nothing like "The Wheels On The Bus" videos or even those funnier stuff like "Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo doo Baby Shark!" and its variations interest her. She loves "The Wiggles," where the three men and that Emma lady smile a lot on everything.

As she sits on the stool, I put my fan on towards her. I don't want her to be sweating or feel hot in anyway. She points to the fan and says "uh-uh-uh" with her hand shaking down with disapproval.

I turn off the fan and she focuses on the shows again.

The other day, one of her maternal grandmothers tried to take her away from playing with me. She turned to the grandma and made a pushing motion with her left hand for disapproval and added a big  mad grimace on her face with raised eye brows and tightened lips.

[Reporter]

I was at their place and was exchange cars with the little sister's dad.  I was at the steps just below the floor where everyone was sitting at. I handed my key to the little sister and said "muab rau daddy!"

She walked over, reached for the key chain and thumb-pressed on the remote a few times. (She's used to the TV remote and the computer mouse with those clickings.) Then she walked over to her dad and handed over the keychain.

Her dad gave her his set of keys and told her to "muab rau R."

She took them and pressed on them a few times before she walked them over to me.

We clapped for her success.

She smiled.