I'll be the first to admit, I'm not so good at the whole sitting-still thing. I'm too restless. It's like there is a soundbite looping in my brain of all of the things I could/should be doing instead. Sometimes, I can remind that obnoxious, constant voice that I should be spending time with my girls (even if "spending time" to them means that I sit in the room while they play dolls by themselves and they fuss at me for interrupting when I try to talk to them.) Sometimes I try to come up with more entertaining things we can do together. And sometimes I just make a couple of runs to check the laundry inbetween puzzles or books.
But even the nervous, chore-obsessed voice can't argue with a sick baby. So I sat and cuddled and talked and listened more than usual. I rubbed her little legs and feet and smiled when she said, "That ticklishes me." I held her one afternoon for her entire naptime. I watched countless episodes of Blue's Clues and Dora and Pingu with her planted firmly on my lap.
It was very sweet. And somewhere along the way, Little Sis seemed to find her voice.
Don't get me wrong, Little Sis has never had a hard time talking. She has always had the best intonations, the most oddly appropriate responses, and the funniest facial expressions. But a lot of that comes from her keen observation, and frequently she simply repeats things to be like her big sister or older friends.
For example: A few weeks ago, she started trying to tell secrets in my ear, after Big Sis and a friend tried to teasingly convince her of some Mermaid fairytale with a "secret." Every secret Little Sis told was the same: "There was a mermaid, and she had purple hair." Okay, so the hair color might change, but the premise never did. It was just trying to say the right thing.
The same thing happened over & over at dinner or in the car, when she wanted to contribute to the conversation (which these days, is always about 92% Big Sis, 8% everyone else in our family.) Sometimes Little Sis will get super-frustrated and scream, "NO! LET ME TALK" only to mumble almost the same thing, or her own possibly-not-even-true version of whatever Big Sis or someone else was saying. And bless her heart, that was IF she got a word or two in at all.
Well, something seems to have changed this week. Maybe she grasped a little more about the art of conversation. Maybe I just listened more. Maybe Big Sis is getting more patient and appreciating what she has to contribute. Or maybe Little Sister just has more confidence in what she is going to say and that her own input matters.
All I know is, she is starting to talk more about things SHE saw, or heard or experienced. Like today, in a stolen moment when Big Sis was upstairs and it was just the two of us, she just blurted out, "Today at school, we played with NEW blocks that Miss Meredith made! They were pink and green and gray!" Usually, all she says about school is "yes" when I ask if she had fun, and tell me someone pushed her down. This was different- a glimpse into what she is thinking. I love that she can explain her day, especially a part of it I missed, to me in her own words.
She also has taken it upon herself lately to be the house bloodhound. As if we need another dog. She points out any stinky smell. And sometimes she'll even follow up her "it stinks" with "It wasn't me!" The other day at the mall playground, she told me it smelled funny. A few minutes later, after trying to pry her off of my legs and get her to go play, she told me "but something is stinky out there!" I had to go sniff around and tell her whatever it was (most certainly a dirty diaper on some fellow climber) was indeed gone.
She is telling me more about what she sees and understands in movies or tv shows that we watch. One day she sat on my bed and stroked Keaton, then looked up at me and said, "Mr. Lopart says 'I'm really more of a cat person.'" She'll explain why she doesn't like certain movies ("there's a bad guy in that one").
She takes her leftover dry cereal and doles out each piece, one at a time, into the dogs' bowls, talking to them the whole time. "Sit, Al. Good boy. No, Sophie, eat your other one first and then I'll give you one. Nice job."
She is even beginning to give her tiny princess dolls a little more of a plotline/script than "hello" or "Mommy!" (That one was pretty confusing for me, for a while.)
Of course, there are still lots of other things she is still figuring out. Like when she asked, "Do you know that song the bad guys sing in Pocahontas? It says, "Sandwiches, Sandwiches."
I'm still giggling. I can't help it. I love that little girl and her big brain.
She ticklishes me.
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