Conversation

Our days are full of conversation these days. Hayden asks questions incessantly and likes to talk about anything and everything. She asks hard questions (what happens when an airplane has an accident?), dumb questions (the roundabout What's this? It's a ____. What's a _____? (what we are looking at!!!)) , smart questions (where will the baby sleep? when we first told her about nugget), and silly questions. Favorite recent topics include the royal wedding (she was mesmerized when we caught a repeat showing of it that morning and has poured through the pictures in our magazines), her birthday wishlist (just about everything is one it), and planning special trips to get ice cream (she just asked me tonight if she and daddy could go get ice cream sometime when it's hot and sunny.) She also likes to narrate her life as in "she runs away " when she runs into another room. She has extended playtime alone with her animals and dolls, often during naptime, with lots of chatter. She's starting to get jokes - both to tell them and to hear them, and it's so fun to tease her and make her laugh.

Eliza's language continues to explode. She's up to 269 words on her list, and I'm sure there are ones I'm missing. She has even started to say Yes when we ask her questions! She's started combining words together (i.e. "more flying" when playing with Jason, or "no thank you" when refusing something offered her.) Some of her more recent acquisitions include bug, stick, camera, mango, morning, drum, pool, sandals. We are even starting to have conversations - even though she only says one word at a time. (see conversation described in previous entry about the pool being fun.) She will pick up a play phone and say hi over and over - often Hi Katie, since she just saw Aunt Katie.

The girls are interacting more and more together. While it often involves screeching and unhappiness, there are also really fun times too. When Eliza woke up from a nap grumpy a couple days ago, I had her in my room snuggling her in a chair. Hayden came in the room, climbed on the bed, and started goofing off by standing on the bed and then falling over. Eliza thought it was hilarious and her laughter made all of us laugh. We rediscovered the hokey pokey recently and both girls had a blast dancing and singing. We had a rousing round of "if you're happy and you know it" in the bathtub tonight.


And a new favorite game is called the wake up - cockadoodle doo game. (or something like that). I pretend to be asleep (or anyone willing to play) and then the girls yell "cock-a-doodle doo!" like roosters and I wake up all surprised. Check out the video. Eliza's Cock-a-doodle is actually cock-a-doo and is SO cute. For the record, I don't snore like that in real life! :) We play this all the time . Eliza requests it by saying sleep, sleep and tilting her head to the side, much like she does in the video.


Eliza also is starting repeat words when we tell her to say them. My favorite is guacamole. If we had it more often (if only!), she'd probably know what it was, since she did like it, but otherwise she is just good at saying it. I am trying to get it on video. Somehow she turns a spanish-esque word (is it a real Spanish or Mexican word? must be.) and make it sound italian because her version comes out Wock-ah-moan-ee. So funny.

So come on over and enjoy some good conversation. And I'll make Eliza say guacamole. You'll love it!