Out of the Mouth of the Babe

It's been pretty hilarious to watch as Allison Clare's language develops. In the fall, she and I used to go to this bakery and get doughnuts on Saturday mornings, and they had a TV playing cartoons. She pointed to a mouse and wanted to know what it was. When I told her it was a mouse, she placed one finger thoughtfully in her mouth and looked like she was trying to figure out the connection. Similarly, she was delighted when her babysitter, April, whom she calls "Prin" (from back before she could say the L sound), gave her a Santa Claus apron for Christmas. To her, getting "a prin" from "Prin" made perfect sense.

Now when she cries and needs a tissue, she tells us that her nose is sad. In the mornings when I am getting ready, she thinks I put on my "wake up"--which is too close to the truth, really. She makes connections, like when she wanted a pacifier (having never really used one before), and I said, "Big girls don't use pacifiers," and she stared at me and then said, completely deadpan, "Braden. Pacifier. Too." As if to reproach my logic with the reminder that her little friend Braden from church does, indeed, use a pacifier.

And after seeing me nursing Gillian the first or second time, she had it all figured out, pointing to my chest and saying: "Two cups, baby's. Drink milk."