The little girl's cousin now starts her journey

[Reporter]

Ej Ej was here the other day with Pey-Pey.

As she was crying without saying anything
useful, I felt the milk bottle would be a
pacifier. So, I reached for it and slipped
it into her mouth.

Ej Ej bit it, sucked it, and calmed down.

But, since it was low, I carefully
withdrew the bottle from her
mouth to fill it up some more.

Meanwhile, Ej Ej put her left
hand to her mouth twice to
give me the meaning that
she wanted to intake.

She's still crawling. But she
isn't far from knowing some
natural signs of communications .

[Reporter]

This warming air and sunshine are like a
plague to the snowman we have
made.  Slowly, each piece of its
body comes down. First, the right
peanut, then the left stirring
wooden utensil. Those came down
yesterday already.

Today? Both of the yellow and
green candy stems from the snowman's
head fell to the floor.

Its body is sliming down, too.

Soon, water will start dripping down
to the ground and either will all
evaporate or become a tiny puddle.

A cardinal's song was heard
so loudly today in the neighborhood
that I'm certain that there's no
rescuing the snowman from its
plight.

[Reporter]

The relatives say Pey-Pey is so smart that
she already knows these three things:

1. high-five,
2. fist-bum, and
3. hand-shake.

Before I took Pey-Pey and NiNi to Cabela's the other day,
I had to put them in the back seats, of course. As soon
as Pey-Pey got into the car, she gave NiNi a kiss on
the head and said "Give me kiss. I miss you."

Sitting next to NiNi in her car seat, Pey-Pey reached
her left hand to NiNi said "hai fai."

NiNi reached her right hand out and tapped Pey-Pey's
palm with her palm.

"Fist bum," said Pey-Pey.

NiNi bums her fist over Pey-Pey's.

Then came "shake hand" and NiNi
shook Pey-Pey's hand.

NiNi can't such things yet. But
she already could follow Pey-Pey's
instructions.

Why not praise NiNi, too?

Sure, they have a long way to go
in life. But at just 1.5 and 3,
these two little ones are demosntrating
lots of teenage knowledge already and
that of those adults who enjoy being
kiddies.

[Reporter]

NiNi is probably an American soul born into
a Hmong family.

The other day, we put her on her baby toilet
and she asked for a pen and paper to write
on while sitting on the potty seat.

I told her "no, no, not yet."

She now asked for "iPad."

I've seen photos of White American adults
doing that.

[Reporter]

NiNi has started uttering sounds to nouns she sees and even imitates what she has heard.

"Leolo," she said the other day while holding up a yellow playdoh.

"Right," I said. "Yellow."

"Jween," she added about the green one.

As I walked to the kitchen from the living room, she said "Boo! Boo!"

I turned around and played her game with her: "Peekaboo! I see you!"

She laughed hysterically.

[Reporter]

I picked Pey-Pey up again tonight, because her parents wanted to be alone
for the next two days. (Her crawling sister, Ej Ej, had been sent to their
paternal grandparents.)

On our way home, Pey-Pey saw a vast bald area.

"I shee yake," she said. "It'sh frozhen."

"Right. The lake is frozen now," I said.

"Too chold. I go skating. But shlip and fall."

That surprised. She just learned how to walk...

"Can you really skate?" I asked.

"No."

[Reporter]

We drove by the cemetery on Dale Street on our way to Highway 36.

“What are those?” Pey-Pey asked.

She pointed to the graveyard.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She asked again.

“They are stones,” I said euphemisticall y.

“No,” she said. “They are people…Our people.”

[Reporter]

Even when we were just on our way to our place that night,
Pey-Pey told me the snowman’s head had melted.

“The head melting,” she said.

True. But I had never said that to her.
I shut up because she already knew
and there was nothing to beat around the
bush about.

Anyway, we got home and she saw just a
pile of the bottom part of the snowman.

That night she made me angry. I told her I
was not going to make her any more snowman.

She felt so bad, she went inside her little house
and invited me to play with her. “Come play with me,” she said.

The next day, before I left for Missouri, I quickly shoveled
some snow together and built one other tiny snowman that
seemed just as cute as the one before.

I called my sister in the late morning just as Pey-Pey was getting up. I wanted to surprise her.  My sister said they had not gone to the backyard yet and that nothing had been disclosed to Pey-Pey yet.

“I made you something,” I said.

“You made me a new snowman?” she said.



Pey-Pey stands to admire the new snowman.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey called me on her grandmother's phone from their house.

"What chaw you joing?" she asked.

"I work. What are you doing?"

"Nawting."

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey's mom dropped her off to stay overnight, because
Pey-Pey insisted on another visit. She said she wanted to
stay "long day."

She wanted to play with the kitchen set. But I didn't want to
take her downstairs. So, I suggested she play with the slime
bottle set I had bought for her a while ago.

I flashed it in front of her. "Look! Slimes! Many colors, ok?"

She smiled for a long while and grabbed the set from me.

"Silly, R! You are funny, R! You are so funny?"

Pey-Pey's pronunciation of words is getting better. Getting
out of lisping on most of the words except for the k-sounded
words like come (she says "chome") and go (she says "joe") and
things like that.

[Reporter]

I had put some cardboard boxes of stuff in the living room that have been jammed up the central play area.

"You made a mess, R," Pey-Pey said. "You have made a naughty mess. You are naught, R."

I promised to clean that up soon.

[Reporter]

Pey-Pey looks at her iPad and sees a food channel.

"Veggies," she says. "I like veggies. Veggies make you shtrong."

My sister says "But when you give her veggies, she only licks them."

I'm making chicken noodles soup for her tonight.

[Reporter]

I made my usual veggie soup: young pumpkin pieces, pumpkin tips, pearl oyster mushrooms, salt, and lemongrass. 

"Do you like veggies?"  I asked Pey-Pey.

"Yes."

"Will you eat some?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I dipped out a tablespoon full of the soup and raised it to her mouth.

"Here. Eat the veggies."

She shook her hands and turned her mouth away.

"No!" she said.

"Eat some."

I kept the spoon near her mouth still.

"No! No!"

"Don't you want to be strong?"

"Yes."

"Then eat the veggies."

"No! No! Wah! Wah! Wah!"

[Reporter]

One thing Pey-Pey never objects to is bathing. She has always liked water and would ask most times.

This morning, she told me she had peed in her diaper. I could see it hanging thick and looking heavy.

"You want me to change you?" I asked.

"No. I wait for Aunties."

Then I suggested taking a bathe. She quickly pushes her diaper down and ran with it to the trash bin in the kitchen. As she came back, I already had the tub running with warm water.

"I want to be cheen (clean)," she said.

[Reporter]

We were getting ready to go pick up Cousins 2 and 3 so that all of
us could go see the animals at the mall.

"You nploov nploom and dress up, R" she instructed.

I quickly did all that.

"You look sho beautiful, R"