"Mommy!" I heard my almost-two-and-half-year-old shout emphatically, the other day. "Daddy hello!!!" My ringing mobile phone was clutched in her tiny hands, and she shook it towards me. "Daddy hello!"
I love discovering how my toddler makes sense of the world.
I was struggling out of my pajamas this morning when my toddler ran into my bedroom, waving the outfit she's chosen from her chest of drawers wildly behind her. "Mom! La La!" she chirped emphatically, pressing the soft knit dress into my hands. As I slipped the outfit over her naked baby belly, I idly wondered what she meant by "La La" - I'd been hearing it for the last day or so and she seemed to say it randomly.
Later, we were waiting in the air-conditioning of the car for Madeline's scout meeting to end, and I handed Sadie a copy of Family Fun Magazine, a Disney publication, to page through, looking at the pictures. She had found the page that was advertising wall decals, and she solemly showed me the decals of Lighting McQueen. She moved her finger across the page to rest on the blue-gowned Cinderella decal and exclaimed, "La La!"
Then she pointed to another two dimensional yellow-gowned princess, and again uttered, "La La!". Next, she pointed to the last princess, wearing the green frock, and told me, "La La!"
So, I was starting to think that "La La" perhaps was Sadie's word for "lady", but that all changed when next she pointed to her chest, covered by her blue floral knit dress, and told me, "La La, Mama! La La!"
She pointed to my own torso, sporting a boring green t-shirt from Land's End, shook her head, and uttered a sad, "No."
I am not sure how she connected "dress" to "La La" but I am pretty smitten by the made-up language of little kids.
Lest anyone think that I haven't posted lately because I've been far too busy doing millions of exciting things here in Ho Chi Minh City, I'll share what was the highlight of my week. After dinner on Friday, Sadie (who is about six weeks shy of 2.5 years), spoke to me in a full sentence. "Mama, are you all done?" and then she took my plate to the kitchen. That was the most exciting thing for the entire week. No exotic shopping finds, coffee dates, day trips to the Mekong delta. It was a completely boring and average week, except for when my child-of-few-words surprised me by showing off that she actually can talk when she decided to!
The four of us tried hard to think of something interesting and/or fun to do on Saturday afternoon. After Sadie's nap, we sat around for what was probably forty minutes before concluding the the option that we could think of was hitting the Snap Cafe. Chris had a pot of iced green tea, I drank fresh lime juice, and the kids ran around on the sand and play structure. It's a nice place to take a break, but it's hardly original!
There is so much that Sadie wants to say these days.
The unfortunate part, though, is that she uses the exact same whine/grunt to communicate every single one of those things.
Hey Internets! It's happened again! Last night I tucked Sadie into bed, turned on her crib aquarium and her Sleep Sheep, and said "goodnight". Today, she's sitting in the Tripp Trapp, saying and signing "More!" because I am obviously not handing her spoons loaded with (homemade) fried rice fast enough!
Why is it only my kids who wake up smarter in the morning? I just seem to get more absent-minded ...
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