iToddler

It has to be such a difficult task to grasp the concept of self. While personally, I don't remember the challenge, I have the opportunity to have watched Lilli wrap her messy curly head around the idea.  To see her go from not even knowing she had hands to figuring out she is a singular being with an entire separate set of ideas, feelings and physical needs has been nothing short of incredible.  And luckily for us, she has become astonishingly good at expressing her "self" on a regular basis.

Her vocabulary is expanding at an alarming (and yes, I meant alarming) rate.  Every day she is learning new words, perfecting old ones, and putting together the English language and all of it's parts like she has known it all along.  Sometimes I am shocked, other times appalled.  For example, the time she finished my sentence after cursing at stubbing my toe "son of a...." "BITCH!" That one was all me, can't even pretend it was anyone else's fault. And then there are times when I marvel at her abilities. When she masters more than just the enunciation of the word, but also the concept.

One morning, we went into her room to get her out of bed.  She had misplaced her favorite stuffed animal, Augie, and was searching high and low.  Suddenly she looked at us with a distressed look and said "Augie missing!" The concepts to follow were quick and sometimes amusing.  She figured out how to create "Mommy, make house blocks." request assistance from someone specific "Daddy help?" and my least favorite "Mommy, get up!" She was pulling it all together and creating sentences.

While she understands that I am Mommy and Dave is Daddy, she has a hard time with her own name. We are really to blame, picking a name with three L's was not our best idea.  She has trouble with L's (sounding like Y) and R (coming out as an "ah" sound) and a few other letters.  She has been able to clear up most of her words with in a few weeks, even the R is coming around, but L's seem to escape her and worse frustrate her.  She refuses to say words with L's in them, especially her name.  So I guess the next best thing, when trying to say she was doing or needed something was using "I."

This new understanding turned into a narration of her day.  "I play. I hungry. I all done. I sweep. I help. I make. I clean. I make mess."  It was wonderful to finally get the play by play of what she was doing or planning.  Most recently she has started saying "I cold" which resulted in dragging out all of the winter hoodies from the back of her closet. My favorite so far, though, is "I busy." I can't count many times have I said "Lilli, Mommy is busy, you need to be patient." I would soon live to regret those words.

"Song of the Entry"
Living Room by Honey Clouds