Observations on a Goon

I can't tell you how much I'm loving the fact that I can now carry out a dialogue with Olive.  This evening, for instance, after she'd gobbled up two clementimes (yes, she says it with an 'm' at the end), I asked her what else she'd like to eat.  "Yogurt," she replied, and when I opened the refrigerator to get her some she spied the tempeh.  "I want tempeh."  So I put on some rice to boil, which she later mistook for quinoa.  If I have to tell my child that her rice is another, superior grain in order for her to eat it, so be it.  When she sees a necklace I'm wearing she'll ask me to "take it off" and I'll ask if she'd like to wear it. "YESS."  She's really gotten a handle on the affirmative response; just a few short weeks ago "no" was her standard reply to anything, and now her no has diminished to a distressed and very understandable hand gesture that elicits too many laughs from Rob and me, which is probably incredibly frustrating to her.  Or maybe not.  "Pwease", "tenku", and "yuwecome" are often thrown into her exchanges with us, which makes me very proud.  She's mimicking our behavior more and more.  When I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth she follows me in, pulling out her step stool and requesting her brush.  I was getting ready for bed early tonight so she witnessed me flossing my teeth, which she found pretty funny, so I let her have a go at it.  It made me question the age at which I should start implementing this very important habit in her routine and I figured now is as good a time as any.  Her teeth are still pretty spaced out, but I'd like for her to at least become familiar with it as something that accompanies brushing.  This evening she picked up a telephone and held it to her ear.  "Hewo?  Yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...YESS...yeah...{chuckles and gibberish}..."  Sweet stuff.  In the last week reading to Baby has become something she enjoys after I've put her to bed.  She doesn't sleep with a light on in her room so I leave her door open so just a little light will shine in on her - just enough so she can see the pages.  I love to hear her repeating some of the lines she's memorized.  And tonight she was working on singing the alphabet song and doing a pretty decent job.  The ABCD part she had down pat, and the more she sang it the more other letters began to show up, particularly in the QRS bit.  She's going to be delighted to return to Music Together on Tuesday.  

What a blessing it is to be the mother of this amazing child!