Oh, you kids

Mini Me just makes me chuckle...
Mini Me:  Did you just hear that dump truck beepin' up?  
Me:  You mean it's backing up?
Mini Me: Yeah, he's beepin' up.



Mini Me: Look!  There is a bird on the poke!
Me: (looking out the window).  On the what?  The tree?
Mini Me: No, at the top of that house.  He's on the poke.
Me: (still searching).  On the roof?
Mini Me: Nooooo.  On the poke of that wire thing.  
Me:  Oooohhhhh, the TV antennae.  Yes, that does look pretty pokey.  


Mini me is really great at the passive voice.  Even at three, he has figured out how to paint the situation as though he is not directly at fault.  Frequently, there are big melees resulting in Little Lady's cries and I ask what happened.  Mini Me's report usually goes something like this: Well, she took my toy and then my hand just went out and pushed her!    or   But she was in my way so my foot just kicked out just a little bit and bumped her.

One thing he has been doing for such a long time that I'm used to it, and actually say it myself now, is calling racing cars or running them along the floor, "rumming" them.  As in, "Mommy, let's rum some cars back and forth!"  I don't know why, but it always makes me giggle.  

Little Lady keeps me on my toes...
She started walking long distances without falling the day before her first birthday.  It took mere days (hours maybe) for her to become fast and steady.  It took about one minute longer for us to figure out we needed a gate to stop her from dashing in to investigate the bathroom or hoist herself onto Mini Me's toddler bed and start standing and bouncing....  I barely even ran the water for a sink of dishes before she had accomplished both of these feats.  She. Is. Fast.

Little Lady knows two words: Dada and down.  She says them both very clearly, and she says them both pretty frequently when she is in my arms!  Ouch.  In an attempt to go with her "d" words, I have been trying to teach her "drink".  I've said the word "drink" about three thousand times this summer.  Instead of attempting to say it, she just smacks her mouth, grunts, and points to the fridge when she wants a drink.  I know, I know, children learn to talk in their own time but you'd think that adding another "d" word would be easier than an action, a verbalization, and another simultaneous action.


We have been trying to teach Little Lady how to touch gently.  Even Mini Me informs visitors to our house, "She's just a baby and she's learning how to share and play nicely."  Whenever she touches too roughly, we take her hand and help her pat our arm nicely or stroke our cheek gently.  She's learning!  Now she'll toddle over to me, stroke my cheek, give me a kiss, and claw at my eyes.  I don't think Daddy should have taught her how to "tickle tickle" with her fingers at the same time we were working on gentle strokes.