We’ve been offline for a while, owing to yet another computer fiasco.
While Erik was in Battambang province for 9 days, I took a few notes on
some of the things Arun’s been up to:

21 November 05. Woke up chatting about everyone he knows. Must have had
a good dream. He went to the kitchen, pulled a clean glass from the
dishrack, and poured himself a drink of water from the filter. He spent
the following week enjoying thrusting objects down mommy’s shirt.
Insisted that afternoon that his dolly be as naked as he was, and ran
away screaming when mommy suggested puting on a diaper. Started to play
at putting PomPom bear to bed, and taught him how to ride Arun’s trike.
He also made sure that PomPom knew how to beep the horn.

25 November 05. Really starting to acquire vocabulary quickly. He only
has to hear the word for something once or twice and he’ll retain the word. Knows a few words in both Khmer and English, like ‘fish:trei,’ ‘water:teuk,’ and ‘lock:sau.’

26 November 05. Sokhun makes up songs for Arun the way we do now – it’s like living in a musical around here. Today I overhead her walking around the house singing, ‘Don’t play with dirt; dirt contains bacteria!’

28 November 05. His amazing vocabulary spurt continues. When we get to the end of Goodnight Bear it’s particularly evident. Arun consistently recognizes the following in the little bear’s room:

• bird
• komnou – ‘drawing’
• khnaoy – ‘pillow’
• baby
• fish
• ball
• car
• and frequently, recognizes:
  • boat
  • airplane, and
  • domrei – ‘elephant’

29 November 05. Arun told mommy, ‘Bye-bye,’ and ‘I love you mommy,’ as mommy left the house, and seemed okay with letting her leave. Very sweet.

2 December 05. Arun plays the ‘ham nom’ game, where he threatens to pee on the bed or one of hte pillows, and we have to yell ‘ham nom,’ – ‘it’s forbidden to pee!’; it sends him into gales of laughter. He calls towels ‘juut,’ ‘to mop up,’ which I think is him surmising the name of a thing based on what it does, given that towel is ‘konsaing’ in Khmer. Apparently knows the word ‘Lok-sangh,’ since he screamed it when he saw a couple of young monks walking on the street together from the balcony this morning. He is extremely jealous of his pillows, and will let no one have one when we put them out on the balcony for play. He loves mantou. He calls everything that’s round a ‘moon,’ and insists that all stars are also ‘moons,’ even though he knows the word ’star.’ It’s a game. He loves pulling out the contents of mommy’s makeup kit. He loves breasts of all kinds. He taught PomPom bear how to ’sadhu’ the Jomneang Pteah shrine with a stick of incense. He loves books about babies. He knows and can say his own name. He tells mommy when he wants milk by saying ‘dawhgo,’ – which is most of the word for ‘milk.’ And when he’s finished with it, he hands the empty bottle to mommy and says, ‘done.’