Sunday, September 19, 2010

What's That, she said

So The Daughter is almost 14 months old now and only because she was preceded by The Son who, from as early as I can remember, could simply not stop talking, we are completely freaked out by her rather stoic silence.

Which is not to say that she doesn't understand what's going on. Based on all the pointing, her vocabulary seems fine and she's picking up new words (mostly nouns) at a fairly brisk pace, but unlike her big brother, she's really not interested in repeating anything after us. He would repeat and repeat and repeat as often and for as long as we could, but she just won't. And while he was, and still is, a walking talking stream of consciousness, she seems to be far more reticent to share what she's thinking. It's like she wants to tell me, hey, I think you're a nice lady and all that, but I don't see why I need to tell you everything.

So it was a like a sunburst out of the dark when, as I was packing for a trip this evening and writing up a list of Things To Do in my little paper notebook, she suddenly leaned over and said "What's that?" in reference to my fountain pen. I almost fainted from happiness. What's that, indeed. All that prolonged silence, and suddenly you want to know what's that. "That's a pen," I said, somewhat dazed by the sudden turn of events. "Pen" she repeats. And smiled at me, showing all 4 teeth. I was so delighted that I passed the pen to her immediately so of course my Things To Do list is now quite screwed up. I should just rename it "A few of the things I have to do".

11.9kg.