Miss Bossy Pants

You can pretty much guess what I'm going to say with the title of this post. Yes, Leah is turning all her wonderful vocabulary into commands:

"Momma clean up."
"Daddy stand up."
"Daddy go way." (while pointing wherever she wants him to go)
"Momma make food."

And the list goes on. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she does have a limited vocabulary, so she can't yet say, "Momma, can you help me clean up please?" or "Daddy, I want to you stand up with me." I get it; it makes sense when you think of it in that way.

But boy, her tone of voice... sounds like a command. And it gets old. Fast. So, we've started using her favorite word. No. ;)

This girl SO knows how to get me though, to piggyback off of "One More Time". One of her new phrases is "Lookin' good!" She says it when I change her clothes, or when she puts a hairband or hat on my head. A few days ago, she was pretending to talk on the phone (calculator) and at the end of her "conversation", she said, "Love you too" and looked right at me, like she just knew I was going to think that was adorable. She was right, little stinker.

And then, on Monday, we're in Kroger. She's sitting in the cart and at one point, I must've leaned close to her, so she grabs me, pulls me into a hug, and says something that I usually say to her, "You're the best." I nearly cried in the middle of the grocery store.

That's probably the coolest thing a boss has ever said to me. :)

Wordless Wednesday

One More Time

When you have a child, especially a little girl, you get a lot of comments like, "Oh, I bet she has you wrapped around her little finger!"

I don't know if we've ever been those parents.

We try to set up various rules and routines, we do time-outs for misbehavior, and we let the grandparents do the spoiling. We've ignored "The Pout", because we knew it was a ploy for attention. Sure, we treat Leah to things every now and then. We let her run the show when it comes to what movie we're going to watch, or we use lollipops to help with a smooth grocery store trip. Still, for the most part, we try to set limits and stick to them.

Except for, "One more time."

Dan and I admit, we are both powerless to this one little phrase uttered by this adorable little girl in her sweet little voice with her cute little hand gesture. When she enjoys some activity, be it twirling with Daddy, getting tickled by Momma, or whatever else we've come up with that day, she will play this card mercilessly when one of us has said, "OK, that's enough for now" or "Let's take a break".

"One more time."

OK, you win. We will do whatever it is you want. Because that is just the most darling thing ever.

Her pronunciation has gotten much better within the last couple weeks, but it used to sound like, "Boo boo time."  Ah, the cuteness!

Spinning, twirling, tickling, plotting for world domination?  We're helpless. We're wrapped. Leah triumphs.

Capisce?

Since my brother and cousins were young, I've always enjoyed "little kid language". You know, the made up words they say because they can't pronounce something correctly or because they don't understand the proper forms of speech yet. Just last year, when I was still working full-time, I loved hearing stories about one of my co-worker's sons and the silly things he would say.

Leah's now at that age where she's really trying to say everything, even if it doesn't always come out right. Her language improves each week, and she's always adding new words or phrases to her vocabulary. Along with that comes her "little kid language" that I am relishing. These are some recent highlights:

"Too fit" - A combination of "too big" and "doesn't fit"
"Feel better" - When she means that something sounds good, she says this
"I like it that" - Again, a combo of "I like it" and "I like that" ;)
"Dina-sino" - Dinosaur (from Toy Story)

It's fun, and I'm curious to see what she'll come up with next.

Baking Cookies

Earlier today, Leah helped me make chocolate chip cookies! It was the first time doing this type of activity with her, and she did well. I measured out the dry ingredients and asked her to put them into a larger bowl... she didn't quite understand my direction and placed her fingers into the sugar/flour in order to transfer them to the bowl, rather than lifting the measuring cup and dumping all of its contents. It's actually really interesting to see how her mind works, as I'm expecting a different response in my own head. ;)

Still, by the time we got to adding the chocolate chips, she had figured out what I was instructing and picked up the cup to pour the chips into the dough. She did a great job stirring the dry ingredients together, and stirring the final dough. As you might expect, she's also a great batter tester too. ;)  In fact, she seemed very frustrated that we had to spoon the cookie dough onto baking sheets and leave it there to bake. Clearly, she wanted the dough all to herself. Who can blame her? That's the best part!

Day in the Life

The April '08 message board I'm a part of has been doing a fun activity called "A Day in the Life of..." Those of us participating have been assigned a specific week where you choose a day and take photos throughout, illustrating your daily life. Leah and I did ours this past Tuesday, and I figured it would make for a good blog post too. It was a fairly typical day for us, and it will be interesting to look back on. :) Hope you enjoy.

This post is very, very picture heavy! Just click below...