Will she ever stop talking?

When Sofia was in the womb, I thought for sure she would grow up to be an interpretive dancer or acrobat. After she was born, she was so serious and always looked at everyone with a wrinkle in her brow that I then revised my thoughts and decided she would definitely be a dramatic actress. As she grew and her “little” personality started to show, I was sure she’d be in the circus, maybe as the lion tamer, maybe the bearded lady, who knows. But now, I’ve changed my mind again. I think she’ll be an auctioneer because, man, that girl can talk!

The talking starts the second she wakes up –-Daddy, I want you… Daddy come get me. Yes, she still sleeps in her crib and we intend to keep it that way as long as physically possible. She doesn’t try to climb out herself, because you see, that would take effort and physical exertion on her part. That would not be one of her strong points. Something which has aggravated my back for quite a long time now, as she makes no effort what so ever to hold on to me when I carry her on my hip. It’s like carrying a sack of potatoes on your hip with legs that just hang straight down. But in this case, it works to our advantage. She stays in her crib, we don’t have to worry about her getting out in the middle of the night and climbing on the armoire or setting something on fire or even worse, coming into our bedroom and getting in our bed.

In the morning, after diaper change and fetching the “milky”, she commences to distribute all her stuffed animals and dolls between her bedroom, the hallway, our bedroom, the walk in closet and our bathroom. So that by the time I get out of bed with my eyes half shut, I can enjoy an obstacle course challenge on the way to the bathroom. This morning, she walked in to the closet with me and as I stood there looking at the floor, she read my mind –- Mami, there’s a lot of crap in here – and she kicked Curious George out of the way for me.

-- You putting pants on? I got pants on. What’s that Mami? You got an owie? You need a bandaid? I get you a bandaid.
-- No, it’s just a freckle, Sofia.
-- Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It’s just a … freckle?
-- Yup, it’s jut a freckle.
-- Ok. You got freckle. It’s not an owie.
-- Where did Daddy go? He went downstairs?
-- I don’t know, Sofia
-- Where did Daddy go? I go get him. I go downstairs with pony.

A lot of the conversations Sofia has are with her guys. Her guys of course are her stuffed animals. She lugs one to five of them under her arms where ever she goes. And she will make the effort to go all the way up the stairs to go get ones that are closer to her heart if necessary. She talks to them and explains things to them. She tells them about the rules. She often plays out scenarios that have occurred earlier in the week. Lately, they’ve been a sickly little bunch.

-- Pony doesn’t feel good. He’s sick. I need to take him to the doctor. It’s Ok, pony. You’re Ok. You go to the doctor cause you don’t feel good. I’m gonna put him in the stroller. OK, pony, get in the stroller. I buckle you.

Her other favorite thing to do is sing. It’s taken her months and months but she’s finally learned Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I think I’ve heard that song a million times now. She’s still not very good with her “L’s” so it sounds more like –- Twinkle Noodle Star. She also loves to sing the ABCD’s. And there’s been a couple times that she’s gone all the way through unassisted. No, unfortunately, I didn’t get it on video. She has her own Wee Sing Children's Songs and Fingerplays CD that we play in the car on the way to school. We had to get it because we felt like very bad parents not knowing any childrens songs ourselves to teach to her. If it’s not on the second we turn the car on. She request’s it immediately. – I want my music on. It’s almost the most annoying CD ever so we put in on the back speakers so we don’t have to get the full brunt of it up front. Sofia refers to this as –- It’s backwards.

For the most part, I think she’s pretty good with her words in that she uses the proper words for things. Not sophisticated words by any means but the right ones, although she did tell me that something was “fragile” the other day which impressed me since I’ve only used that word with her a couple of times that I could remember. But she does have a few peculiar things that she says. For example, she doesn’t know the word for fireplace because when she get’s near it, we are constantly telling her “be careful, that’s hot”. So she refers to the fireplace as “the hot”. –- Mami, turn the hot on. I haven’t really corrected her on that one because I don’t want her to forget that it is in fact hot. I didn’t really notice when it happened but she’s finally started calling Lolo, “Lolo”, instead of “Nono”. However, she calls my parents Chihuahua, whose name is Lolita, “Anita” which I guess is close enough. Then, she has this peculiar confusion, I guess she’s not really confused, it’s more like a notion that Cinderalla and Abuela are one and the same. So she usually calls Cinderalla, “Abuela”.

She’s also been practicing for the spelling bee. She likes us to help her spell her name and the dogs’ names. She has just the right cadence when she says -- Spell Lolo … L-O-L-O … Lolo!

For a while now, I’ve been telling her “I love you” when I put her down to sleep. I taught her to say it back to me and she does, but it sounds just like “good night”, “sweet dreams” and all the other bedtime things we say. When I first started doing it, I wondered how long it would be until she had some kind of understanding of what it meant. I figured it would probably be somewhat of a long time since she’s never really been too affectionate, cuddly, or otherwise demonstrative of warm feelings toward us. But just today, she was very excited about her new Taco Bell dog that she took from my parents’ house the other night. She asked if she could bring it in the car. As she held it in her little arm, she kept talking to it, calling it her “little doggie”.
-- Noodle doggie. You’re a cute noodle doggie and I love you.