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That’s the sound of the light bulbs going off over Tater Tot’s head. Also the sound of the minds of The Daddy and me blowing.

Yesterday I had a hair appointment (hallelujah!) and, while I was gone, The Daddy was hoping that Tater Tot would take an afternoon nap. I had told him “Fat Chance, Buddy” because it’s such a rarity these days. Well, at some point during my outing, The Daddy says to The Tot “Is it time for a nap?”. The Tot gets up, points at the door (Daddy opens it), walks to her room and points at her crib. WHAT???? Did I just type that? Yes, I did. The Daddy lifts her up into her crib and she sits and quietly plays with Mr. Duckie for an hour. Good Lord! No, she didn’t nap but I would have never guessed in a million years that she would be willing to go get in her crib and have “Quiet Time” voluntarily!

Before my hair appointment, The Daddy and The Tot had been playing with the miniature basketball and football he had bought for her. She seemed to really like the basketball and kept trying to bounce it in the kitchen but The Daddy seemed intent on getting her to pay attention to the football. So he said “football” a couple of times and bounced it on the ground as high as it could go to get her attention. When it landed the last time she walked over to it, looked at it and as clear as day said “football”. We looked at each other like “Did we really just hear that?” and, yes we did. This is the little girl who still calls flowers “bow-ber-bers” and says “De-duh” for Dora the Explorer. WHAAA? Of course she wouldn’t say it again because we were so intent on getting her to but we both clearly heard her say it.

She has been intent on signing lately, too. She really likes to sign “eat” and, while I want to reinforce her signing, she signs it ALL of the time. We can have just eaten lunch and she will be signing “eat” a half hour later. And I’m positive that I’m feeding this kid enough at meals. So I try to get creative with what I feed her so that I’m not always shoving crackers in her face. She love tomatoes and pureed veggies, which is good. I think she has universalized “eat” to mean “drink” as well so I try and offer her milk or extremely diluted juice some of the time when she signs it. Always, of course, asking her if she wants something to drink and doing the sign for “drink”. I don’t want to confuse her so I’m trying to clearly show her the signs for eat and drink when I ask her if she wants something to drink or something to eat. Most of the time it’s “eat”. She’s an eater!

She signs “juice” and “milk” now and says “sheeeeez” when I ask her if she wants some cheese. She also sometimes very clearly signs “eat” and then “fish” because she wants to eat goldfish crackers. It’s so exciting to see her able to communicate more! She clearly knows what comes next in our evening routine, too since she is signing “milk” madly while I’m changing her diapers and putting her pajamas on (no we have not quite weaned from the bedtime bottle yet). She signs “diaper” when I am changing her and when I’m doing the laundry and assembling her cloth diapers.

The other way that she communicates lately is to non-verbally communicate her frustration at being told “no”. She has developed the pattern of stomping her foot, saying “Ahhh” and waving her arms and then doing a modified downward-facing dog with her bottom in the air and head on the floor! It’s pretty hilarious but I do whatever I need to not to laugh at her. I don’t want to crush her little spirit. Express yourself, Tater Tot!

Update: She now knows the words “boo-boo” and “Bandaid”! She fell and very minorly skinned her knee today so I cleaned it and put a Bandaid on it. She was enthralled with the whole Bandaid idea and kept saying “Bandaid. Bandaid” over and over. Of course, if you didn’t have the context of putting the Bandaid on her knee, you probably wouldn’t understand that she was actually saying Bandaid but she was clearly trying. It came out “Bandah” but I kept saying “Yes. You’ve got a Bandaid on your knee” and she would give me a huge grin. When The Daddy said “You’ve got a Bandaid on your Boo-Boo” she seemed to really like that and said “boo-boo” over and over for a while.

I swear it seems like a switch has turned on the past couple of days. This is fun!