It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly I had my first official conversation with Marie, but I was taken aback a few weeks ago when I stopped in the middle of a dinner conversation with my wonderful husband to hear my beloved two year old, who would usually be making annoying noises by this point in the meal, trying to butt in with her own account of what happened during her day. Her mastery of language has been a gradual process, of course, but recently her proficiency seemed to just blossom overnight. As a language major, I considered myself to have somewhat of an affinity for language…though I admit, I found the whole concept of language development slightly less enthralling when taking my mandatory linguistics course five years ago. Yet these days it’s been more entertaining than I could have imagined to have a front row seat in the evolution of toddler speak.
For instance, the endearing error of Marie's mix-and-match of the first and third person: “Marie wants to brush my teeth and get her hairbrush too.”
Or the concept of time. “Marie, what did you do today?” “I read a book last weekend.” Hmmm. “Marie, do you want to go sit on the potty?” “Not today, in a while. Tomorrow.” Ok, tomorrow it is then.
Then there’s her tendency to form a question using whatever verb she expects you to answer with. Rather than always saying, “Mommy, what are you doing?” she will substitute “doing” with the word “going,” “having,” or “taking.”
Q: “Mommy, what are you having?”
A: “Cereal.”
Q: “Daddy what are you going?”
A: “To work.”
Q: “Mommy, what are you taking?”
A: “A shower.”
Pronunciation has been a continuing effort, as cute as that little toddler lisp is…like when she says “yike” instead of “like” or “Ewik!” instead of "Erik" (which is quite an improvement from her ever-entertaining original pronunciation of ‘ookie’—which we absolutely WILL tell his first date)! She’s getting better at saying “spoon” as opposed to “foon,” but for some reason is ignoring our insistence that she try to pronounce the ‘l’ more clearly in the word “clock.” She’s also somehow mixed up some of her constantans so that “dog” has become “gog” and “truck” has become “cuck.”
There are also those instances where no matter how grammatically correct she is, we can’t help but shake our heads or laugh. Or both. The other night at dinner she was intent on asking everyone repeatedly, “How was your first day, Mommy? How was your first day, Daddy?” First day of what, I’m not sure. Suffice it to say that we each had a great first day. Multiple times.
She also caught on quickly to the concept that batteries make the world go 'round, and if there are dying/no batteries, a broken toy results. Like the Glow Worm that she can’t sleep without. Hence the travesty when Glow Worm started singing his swan song and we couldn't find new batteries in the house. But it was ok, because according to Marie, Daddy was going to fix it when he got home. “Daddy will go to the store and get clean batteries,” she announced. My hero.
Tonight her application of her newfound language skills was to try and reason her way out of going to bed. “I don’t want to go night night!” she whined. “Well what do you want to do instead?” we asked. “Go to Walmart,” she answered without hesitation. Of course. Because that’s what we all do when we don’t want to go to bed yet.
And finally, every so often there’s that gem of a phrase that captures my heart and makes me melt…like the times she calls out, completely unprompted, “Thank you for cooking!” and best of all, “I love you, Mommy! You’re the best Mommy!”
And the smile that accompanies it is priceless.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Unplanned
Abby Johnson featured on the 700 Club:
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Saturday, January 8, 2011
“Time to face up, clean this old house…”
I know very few people who actually like cleaning. Years after leaving home I can still hear my mother’s words: “Don’t put it down, put it away!” Granted, it’s a great feeling when things are clean and organized…but the work it takes to get there is pretty far down on my list of fun things to do. So naturally I was overwhelmed last night as we attempted to get all of our Christmas stuff put away, surrounded by piles of decorations, memory boxes, toys, laundry. The sheer volume of it all was so daunting that I was tempted to just walk away for a few more days in favor of something easier. But as we picked up one item at a time and dealt with it, the room became not only cleaner and more pleasant to be in, but I felt my internal load lighten as well. Once we actually started (with much credit going to my wonderful husband for keeping us on track), it was easy. I realized it’s the initiative piece of the puzzle that I’m missing…the act of will to just make myself to start the task that I need to work on—one item at a time—in order to move forward. As I pondered this last night, the good Lord ever so gently elbowed me in the ribs and said “let’s do some house cleaning in that spiritual junkyard of yours, too, huh?!” And with all my bemoaning aside, I admit that it’s time. I've discouraged myself into a stalemate for far too long, overwhelmed with all the things about myself that I need to change or make better, spiritually, emotionally, physically. So, here I go, one item at a time. No walking away, no picking up an item and putting it down unless I've fully addressed it and put it away where it goes. First up: accepting the joy in life.
“...time to breathe in and let everything out…” –Sanctus Real
P.S. I’ve given up on 100 words. For now.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
100 words or less
Sooo it’s been awhile. I’m shamefully bad at math, but even I can calculate based on the dates that it’s been almost a year and a half since my last blog entry. And that I quit after exactly three entries…yikes. My self-diagnoses is a lack of motivation with a touch of insane busy-ness. But I’ve realized a big problem with my other posts was an acute case of word spew, too. So I’ve decided to try something new: keep up the posting, but in 100 words or less. In case you’re wondering, this post is now exactly 100 words long. But I’m giving myself 200 extra words this time for the year of updates I skipped. Suffice it to say, I’d like to get back on the bandwagon and the “New Year, New Me” thing is the perfect excuse. So here are my updates and goals:
1. My hypno-baby, Erik, was born 15 months ago. The hypno-birthing was nothing short of amazing—I hope I’ll get to use it again!
2. Having my husband home for the past year has been nothing short of amazing. Here’s to him staying home for a long long time!
3. The end of 2010 was filled with significant ups and downs, and has helped me appreciate my beautiful family (and in fact, my life) infinitely more than I could have imagined. Now I just need to work on letting them know that.
4. I’m slowly moving forward in my one-step forward, two steps back journey of faith. God has put some wonderful people in my life recently to help me stay on the path!
5. Final goal: finish the Christmas cards this week since New Year’s has already come and gone!
Now if only there was a word count feature in this blog...
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