The little girl's cousin now starts her journey

[Reporter]

All the little girls visited yesterday because their parents
just had some other interests for the day.

Pey-Pey seemed sad that her snowkids had melted away.
In the atlernative, she wanted to play in the snow and insisted
on going onto the snow lawn in the backyard but not without
a hand shovel that Cousin 3 brought out of the garage for her.

So, I scooped up a few buckets of snow with the shovel and the three little
girls helped me build another snowkid for them. (NiNi just walked around
because she couldn't quite do anything useful yet.)

Cousins 2 and 3 were especially helpful in designing and carving the snowkid.

I kept telling them they did a good job. Cousins 2 and 3 seemed very proud of what
they have built with me.



This is probably our last one for the season, because mother nature is probably not going to pour
down any more flurry till November again or so. Pey-Pey will just have to play with her "muddy puddles"
for the rest of spring and summer. (All muddy and water puddles are muddy puddles to her.)

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey's parents were both off today and so they took her and her sister, Ej Ej, to the MOA.

Her mom called me and said Pey-Pey kept asking for me and that she wanted to come to my house.

They put Pey-Pey on the phone.

"R, chome with us," she said.

I told her I couldn't and maybe next time, because I had to work.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"I'm here."

[Reporter]

These little ones and I don't ask one another about our health. Whenever we meet up,
we just go right to fun activities like coloring, naming things, the alphabet letters, counting,
and so forth.

We don't do that, partly because we are indeed anxious about other things than about
one another's health but also partly because whenever I ask them "How are you?", Pey-Pey
wouldn't tell me how she is doing but how old she is. "I'm three" is her usual answer.

[Reporter]

Cousins 2 and 3's mother dropped them off very early because of a school
conference their mother had to attend this Friday.

I wasn't even up yet when they were dropped off. So, when I got
up, they were both sitting quietly on our living room sofa.

They both greeted me.

I asked if they had breakfast yet and if they wanted anything.

Apparently, their mother was extremely busy today. So, perhaps was their father.
Neither packed these two girls anything for lunch--this is unlike previously where
they would come with even just bacon and rice or something to be cooked and...and share.

So, it was already obvious to me that the girls didn't get any breakfast before
coming.

"We have only cereals that I can get very fast," I said.

Kix, Raisin Bran, Special K--I mentioned those to them. I also checked to see if there was
fresh milk.

There was.

Their dad would never have approved of anything even just a day expired, even if the milk has not
shown any sign of spoiling yet--even when the taste is still fresh.

Cousin 2 somehow already had her eyes on top of the fridge and said "I want some
Froot Loops from up there!"

There are little packets of unusually large Froot Loops loops that I had never seen
before but that my sister has gotten from somewhere somehow.

"Can I have the yellow one?" Cousin 3 said.

"They are Kix," I said. "Sure."

I told them to move to the kitchen table. I served them with a bowl of each.

Soon, Pey-Pey had heard that these two sisters had been here and, so, she
had her mother drop her off.

The sisters and I helped Pey-Pey take off her jacket, hat, mittens, and shoes.

Pey-Pey wanted to take them downstairs to play with the Peppa Pig toys and
other kitchen toys down there.

Cousin 3 walked down the first set of stairs on the split-entry stairway.

Pey-Pey followed.

"Be careful, Pey-Pey. Don't go too fast on those steps," I said.

"Don't worry, R," she said.

That alerted to me that she knew the danger and the care needed not to fall. So, I just shut up.

Pey-Pey has always been careful with stairs and high places like top of a sofa or chair. She would
steady herself before letting her full body be on anything like that. She's been doing that since
she started crawling.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey came for a brief visit yesterday but decided at last minute to go to
"mommy house."

When her dad came over to pick her up, he tried all he could to make her stay
overnight. He even stayed for 30 minutes to see if she might change her mind.
But she stubbornly insisted on going home.

Yet this morning, her mom called and said Pey-Pey wanted to visit again.

After her mom had dropped her off to me, Pey-Pey and I looked over two
tiny packets of stuff. My sister said not to open them yet, since one was
a kind of candy that Pey-Pey shouldn't be eating. If Pey-Pey saw it, she
would demand to chomp on it.

Pey-Pey demanded that I open them both though.

But I told her the packets were too slippery and that I couldn't open
them. (I would be able to open them after Pey-Pey had eaten other
foods first.)

Pey-Pey somehow opened one up and then the other.

"Eew!" she said. "It's poop! It tastes like poop! I don't want it!"

She handed it to me. It's a Kinder chocolate candy mixed with
some ivory mush.
We were happy she didn't want it.

"Really? It tastes like poop?" I asked.

"Yes."

"You have had poop before?" I asked.

We just laughed.

I took the candy away.

We were happy she didn't like it.

But, whatever sweets she wants to it, we always make her eat some
food first.

So, as I was typing on my computer and she brought in a
Snickers bar, she said it was chocolate inside and I asked to
eat it, she said, "No. You have to eat mov mov first."

[Reporter]

NiNi's dad dropped her off today because her mom just wanted times for herself when she has any break from work.

I told NiNi to get ready so that we could go wash my Tacoma.

She quickly looked for her jacket, shoes, and pav pam. Then she
brought my shoes to me and stood there to make sure I had them
on before turning to bundle up.

She can't quite say much yet. Her mom has made her count up to 6 in Hmong.
NiNi also knows a few other words. But to insist in words that I put
on my shoes or bundle up--she can't say those yet.

But, like what many people say about love, her actions tell  me she knows more than what she can say in words; it just can't be described by words.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey and I went to the backyard. She saw a pile of used car tires
under the deck.

"Wheels!" she said.

I could tell she got that from that cartoon song lyrics "The Wheels on the bus go round and round..."

"We also call them tires," I told her.

She didn't say anything more.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey finally learned to call a tire a tire.

Yesterday, as I was putting NiNi inside my Tacoma, Pey-Pey was waiting for her
turn. She then pointed to my left rear tire and asked what that was.

I told her it was called wheel but also called a tire.

"Tire," she repeated after me.

I knew she has to question that, because her cartoon TV screen shows have not
been specific about things. Also because the other day when she called them "wheels"
under our deck, I said "tires." She must have thought hard and long
about that. Finally, the opportunity came for her to get it clarified.

At one time, she was standing on a mat full of
giant letters of the alphabet. She could name them and what each stood for. "A" for "apple";
"C" for "cat", "G" for "grapes", for examples. But
she had never seen them scribbled onto small papers or sheets. When I put all of the
letters on one sheet of paper, she could recognize them all and said "Oh!"

That was different from what she had seen on the mat before where one letter was the size of
her entire foot and she couldn't all of them in one view from her standing position.

The cartoon show demonstrates that the "wheels" on the bus turn. But that was just a cool
way to call those bus tires. It's a mistake and a misleading label. The show never calls
them tires. "Wheel" applies to something round that is capable of turning, but as put on
cars, they are "tires."  So, Pey-Pey was surprised I called
them tires because her shows have always called them "wheels." She was ready to
clarify them with me one more time.

Somehow, Pey-Pey does not question  my words or teachings. She realizes that she is still learning and that
I have been honest with her, too.  Her world comes to light whenever we go places and can  name
more nouns or even verbs of certain actions. When she told me she saw a "birdie" flying
in the yard yesterday, I told her it was a "robin bird."

She repeated "robin bird."

She has learned the word "water" in English. But whenever she had a glass or cup of water
in her hands, she would say "I have my npwv npwm."

Of course, my kid language is not well-tolerated by either her mom or NiNi's mom, partly
because they don't know what it is. When something cracks, I tell Pey-Pey and NiNi that
it "plej lawm." Etc.

NiNi's mom has insisted that I speak formal adult Hmong to NiNi instead. So, she stated
to use"dej" instead of "nprwv nprwv" and "tawg" instead of "plej." No onomatopiea.

Well, NiNi has her own creations though. Whenever something has fallen to the ground,
I have told her "poob lawm." If it has tipped over, I would tell  her "vau lawm."

But NiNi would just say "Oh o!" She applies that to all things that fall
or fail. The phone screen blinks out, she says "oh o!" Water drips out of the cup, she
says "oh o." Whenever something goes wrong, it's all "oh o" to her.

We all have come to learn that from her.

Her creation isn't perfect though: One problem is if it's on the phone, then we
wouldn't know what she refers to.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey's mom texted and told me that Pey-Pey has just
grabbed a baby chicken from the farmer auntie's coop to take home.

I asked who was going to feed it.

"You. Lol," she texted back.

"That's what they all want," I texted back.

Soon, both the baby chick and Pey-Pey were dropped off; then
her parents took Ej Ej away for the night.

I looked at the growing cox comb on the chick's head and
knew it was a male.

"It's a rooster," I told Pey-Pey.

"No," she said. "It's a baby chicken."

The morning after, she was still asleep and I quietly
woke Pey-Pey up.

I asked what she heard from the kitchen.

"The baby chicken!" she said.

We walked over to it. Her auntie had packed some
food pellets with the chick, so, it wasn't hard
to just give them to it.

Pey-Pey wouldn't hold the chick though. She patted
it but only on my hand and not on hers.

When it had pecked enough pellets and had stopped, I
put some water in a small plastic bowl to it. But the chick
wouldn't drink it. I had to immerse its beak into the water
for it to swallow some.

Pey-Pey learned what a beak and cox comb are.

I found out from Pey-Pey's mom that this chick was
hatched through an incubator.

That means it has no parent.

But what Pey-Pey and I saw was that it knew how to
scratch for food on its own. As it was picking up the
pellets, it also scratched them here and there, switching
from right to left feet and back.

I learned that it didn't need to be taught by an older chicken
to scratch or peck at all. It just knew how to do that
naturally because that was its nature.

I also put the small plastic bowl of water in front of it this
afternoon, and, surprisingly, it drank from it without me
pressuring it. So, I learned that this chick--and perhaps
many chickens and animals--could be taught to do simple
things, like survival skills.

What surprised me further was when the chicken didn't just hop
around but also flew from the top of our kitchen table to the
sofa, passing Pey-Pey on the way, she said she didn't
want it anymore. I asked her again and again if she really meant
that and she was adamant that she no longer wanted it.

We returned it to the farmer auntie this afternoon, after just
one night of having it.

[Reporter]

Supposedly, Pey-Pey was dropped off at her parents' tonight.

But my sister called and said she was bringing Pey-Pey back to
us. The reason: Ej Ej infuriated Pey-Pey by taking Pey-Pey's
toys and wouldn't let Pey-Pey play with them.

Retaliating against that, Pey-Pey insisted on coming to us instead
of sleeping over at her parents'.

I said it was okay and to bring her back.

As soon as Pey-Pey got back, she asked to see
the baby chicken again.

Good thing I had videotaped it before it was returned to
farmer auntie.


We had to do some wiping after the rooster has had its breakfast.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey no longer asked to see the chicken this morning.

But she has started wanting to crack some peanuts that I have
put out on the deck for the squirrels.

So, I gave her a small hammer to do that with.

Then as we were walking out to the truck to go
to the store, she crushed one with her right foot.

"You crack the peanuts?" I asked.

"Yes."

I think she loves hearing the crunching sounds on
the broken shells. She loves cracking boiled eggs on
the table, too.

The squirrels will just have an easier time with the peanuts.

[Reporter]

We were driving to Pey-Pey's parents and saw lots of
school buses on the way.

Each time we saw one, Pey-Pey would scream with excitement,
pointing to them as well as describing them as "shhchul bus."

I asked if she knew why there are so many around this time of
afternoon.

"They go to their friends," she said. "I want to go to
my friend."

"You have friends?" I asked.

Her answer was a short, simple "yes.

Then I asked what a friend means or is.

She paused and then said, "Friend means NiNi."

"NiNi is your friend?"

"Yes."

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey's babysitter called me for to talk to Pey-Pey.

"R, NiNi is crying," Pey-Pey said.

"Why?"

"She wants blue balloon."

"Is that yours?"

"Yes."

The babysitter said the two were competing for
just that one, even though all of the four in
the house were all blue.

The video showed Pey-Pey pulling the blue helium
balloon from NiNi.

"You share, ok?" I said.

"Yes. But NiNi wants mine."

The video further showed the babysitter
giving Pey-Pey another one so that she would
let go the one NiNi was also holding.

"I don't want it," Pey-Pey said.

[Reporter]

When we saw a school bus near her house,
Pey-Pey again expressed total excitement.

Then she insisted that she be on the bus, too.

"No," I said. "That's not our bus. Not our car.
We can't go on it."

"No. I wanna be on da busssh."

[Reporter]

When Pey-Pey and Ej Ej were at our place,
I told them to stay home while I went out
to jog.

Pey-Pey insisted on coming along.

On our way there, she asked me where
I was going, since I was turning here and
there.

"We are going to the park," I said.

"No. I wanna go jogging," she said.

Pey-Pey finally saw my jogging trail.

As we were walking through it, I jogged
ahead to show her what I normally
would do there.

"No. Wait for me," she said.

Within seconds, she already caught up
to me.