Just thought I'd let you all know, the Munch is speaking in some full sentences now....well, toddler-style full sentences. Tuesday night I had a bunch of empty gift bags out and on the floor, and she was fiddling around with them and looking over them all...and schooling ME on the various things contained thereon:
"Dis is DUCK" "Dat is PINK" "Dis is PUR-PA" "Yook, yook, YEYOW (look, look, yellow)!"
And there's much, much more. On Wednesday, she and Superman, her almost twin that I nanny, were playing their version of hide-and-seek--he'd close the door to his room, and she'd start asking "Where ___ go?" Then he'd pop out from behind the door, and they'd go shrieking up and down the hall in a toddler version of tag. SO cute...even if it was very noisy. :) They often hold animated (unintelligible) toddler conversation...though she is by far the more verbal of the two at this point. No real surprise...she is a girl, after all. ;)
Colors fascinate her. Pink, "ownj", "yeyow", "geen", "boo", "pur-pa" (she gets most excited over this one, I happily must note), and even the occasional white (which sometimes gets confused for pink) she knows really well now. Red somehow got missed or replaced in her mind's rainbow. Today she was playing in a little wading pool with a bunch of plastic balls, and she got so excited about all the color, she just had to keep showing me one after another, announcing to me what each was.
She's also been fascinated by airplanes ever since our trip (gee, I wonder why), and since we live in line with one of O'Hare's far-off runways, she gets plenty of practice pointing them out to me, even when we're inside and all she can do is hear them. Tonight she was clapping her hands above her head and saying "Catch, ai-pane, catch!" And she was "voosh"-ing a toy airplane around yesterday afternoon with considerable glee.
Of course she understands much more than she speaks at this point--it's a little scary just how much she already 'gets.' It's awesome to see that mind of hers moving so quickly and surely, and yet I realize at the same time just how quickly and surely I'm losing the baby to the toddler. Habits like open bathroom doors will need to start changing soon... But I find now that I am able to give her simple directions of many kinds, and she not only CAN do them...she DELIGHTS in doing them. She'll fetch her shoes for me, and put them away; she'll clean up her toys, select the precise book she wants to read when I tell her to choose one; she comes to me with a piece of trash, saying "ga-gaj", and will put it in the trash herself as soon as I tell her to do so. And, lucky me, she responds extremely well to my "no"s.
She also, of course, must say her own "no"s. Superman gets told "No" (or the ominous "Mine", which is a fairly recent vocab addition) when he takes a toy the Munch happens to be engaged with (or was engaged with five minutes ago...). And the cats...well, I was highly entertained one recent afternoon as I heard "No, Pa-cea, No, Pa-cea!" being spoken firmly behind me. I turned around and found that the Munch, seated on the couch, had dropped a dried cranberry to the floor, and before Munch could slide down to retrieve it, ever-hungry Panacea had gone to investigate.
One last thing worthy of a little head-smacking acknowledgement...You remember how previously Shoe and Jacket were combined in Munch's words to say something...um...entirely different? Well, she's learned that putting feet up at the table is a big no-no, and she's gotten pretty good at following this rule. But when one of the boys I sit on Thursdays lifted his own foot during lunch today and touched it to the side of her highchair, she very clearly told him, "Fook, DOWN" before I said anything. Kudos to being able to state what's wrong in words rather than tears (and he did listen to her), but I'm glad these kids I watch are young enough to not know certain words yet...We gotta work on those 't' endings...and words like 'fork' when the 'r' keeps getting left out... ;)
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