Skipping Town

("Lucia, ready to feed the ducks?") "That's wonderful!" ("Lucia, would you like a snack?) "That's a good idea!" "I can't wait to show Daddy what I made! He'll be so happy!" ---variation: "I went poopie in the potty! I'm a big girl now! I can't wait to tell Daddy!" ---variation: "I went poopie in the potty! I'm a big girl now! I can't wait to tell Nora!" (a neighbor we spotted in her yard a few moments before heading to the bathroom) "It's spicy." (Anything she doesn't like is deemed spicy, with a worried and disturbed expression, as though she's saying "It's moving .")

Lucia’s language has gotten both precocious and hilarious lately as she tries out new words and phrases, not always correctly. Some highlights: Andrew, bleary-eyed, stumbled into Lucia’s room one morning this week. She’d been calling for me in her usual way: “Mama…Where ARE you….Maaamaaa….Where ARE you…..Maaamaaa…” When she saw Andrew in the doorway, she said, “First of all, I was calling Mama.” This week I asked Lucia to carry her water to the table for lunch. “Sure, Madame,” she responded with a little smile. She brings out “madame” at random times. “Lucia, are you ready for breakfast?” “Yes, Madame.” “Lucia, here are your Kix.” “Thank you, Madame.” The funniest thing is that she has no idea what it means; I always call her madame when we have tea parties, which is where she learned it, but she also calls Andrew “madame.” We’ve tried to explain that Daddy is “sir,” but it has yet to stick. Sometimes, when Lucia is traipsing around the house babbling to herself, I hear he...

Funny stuff comes out of Lucia’s mouth these days. Here are a few favorites: “Mama, are we stuck?”: She asks this nearly every time we’re in the car, and it means, “Are we lost?” Clearly she’s picked up on the pitfalls of driving around a new town with someone with no sense of direction. I am, obviously, often lost. “Can I have some-a one-a your water?”: This means, “Can I have some of your water?” She hasn’t quite picked up on the differentiation between “some of” and “one of” (as in: one of your chips, one of your grapes, etc.). So she just says both. “I want the poopie chocolate!”: This is a family favorite. In an effort to encourage Lucia to do #2 on the potty, I bought her some M&Ms—different from her standard chocolate-raisin reward. She gets M&Ms only for #2. She clearly understands the different types…just not quite the right way to ask for them. “Mama, that’s not your seat!”: Again with the driving. We drive a lot these days—a not-unexpected thing ...

Lucia’s been saying the funniest things lately. This weekend when Andrew and I were sitting on the couch and Lucia was amusing herself with something on the coffee table, she suddenly looked up and said, “I’m so happy!” That was pretty cute. She also says “I’m walking with a cane” and then limps around the room with her abacus as a cane; “Each one has a flower” when we’re reading Madeline; “She drank the whole thing” when she gives her doll a bottle; “Mama, where are you?”; “Where Dada go?”; and much, much more. Recently she ran into the bedroom, looked at me, and said, “I can’t find paw-paw.” It was just so clear. And yesterday we were both having some turkey breast and she said, “We both eating turkey.” Really fun to see this all in motion. Oh, and today there was this exchange: Lucia, randomly, while standing at her art table: “Happy birthday!” Me: “Whose birthday is it?” Lucia: “Markers’ birthday! They have a cake.” She then grabbed a handful of markers and observed, “Lots of them!...