Big Girl Talk

Unless you'd heard for yourself, you wouldn't believe how Meg is talking these days. This is the same girl who just seven months ago began to say Dada, Mama and Nana consistently--now she speaks in sentences! It amazes and delights us. Our daughter's speech is a constant topic of conversation for Dave and me. It would make you sick to sit in on one of our recent family dinners. "Guess what she said today?" "No way! Unbelievable!" "Did you hear her the other day when she said...? "You're kidding me! Where did she get that?" "I didn't even know she knew the word ____________!"

So we're probably a little bit overly impressed. She is our own progeny, after all. But just to give you an idea of some of her verbal feats, I'm going to list a few recent quotations here. Mind you, her pronunciation isn't perfect, but all of these were clear enough for us to understand immediately.

At breakfast the other morning: "Everybody eat oatmeal together."

As her father left for work, unprompted: "Have good day, Daddy."

Looking out the back window: "Kids play basketball outside."

Having lost hold of some plastic shapes we were using in an activity: "I drop it! I drop it! Blue circle and red circle! I drop it!"

At the playground: "Daddy and Meg swinging together."

Pointing to the milk carton, explaining the finer points of life to her brother: "See picture cow, Matthew? Mooooo!"

Her current pronunciation of "Matthew" sounds something like MAT-muh. I think she has finally stopped altogether with calling him "Dees." Sigh. I know it's good that she's learning to say her brother's name, but her calling him "This" was just so terribly cute.

Being parents makes us so silly sometimes. We rejoice over every new achievement to the point of absurdity; then we turn around and mourn for the bygone days before she could talk, or walk, or eat by herself, or... whatever.

Ah well. If we must be fools, I suppose we may as well be fools for love.

Makin' Mess

"'Kin' mess" (making a mess) is one of Meg's favorite phrases these days. It often seems that her primary goal in sitting down to a meal is to be able to say those words with integrity. She usually announces "'kin' mess" at the start of each meal, before she has even received any food--to forewarn us, I suppose. Then she repeats it several times throughout the meal, just to make sure we haven't forgotten. Finally, when she has filled her belly and accomplished her aim, we usually have a conversation like the one we had today after lunch, when I snapped the picture above.

I had gone upstairs to put Matthew to bed, and when I returned Meg had finished her soup. "'Kin' big meeeeess!" she told me, with relish, as I came back into the kitchen.

"Yes," I replied, "you certainly did make a big mess."

"Oh, good!" she said, sounding overjoyed to have Mommy's agreement. "'Kin' mess!"

So glad I can affirm you in your heart's desire, my child.

Alike

Many people are saying that Matthew looks a lot like Meg. As their mom and dad, we sort of have to agree.

It's funny to see our babies looking more like each other than anyone else. They're not quite Daddy... not quite Mommy, but something in between, something new. A new combination of ancestries and genes that's never been seen before, just like every generation in every family. He is truly an amazing God who made us--Creator of a DNA code that reproduces and reproduces hundreds of billions of times and never comes out the same way twice. Although sometimes, it seems pretty close.

Dance Party, or Na-nee-oh

We've been having some great dance parties lately. For Christmas and her birthday, Meg received two of the Seeds Family Worship CD's. We love them! Each one features a bunch of songs taken straight from Scripture, with great vocalists (mostly) and fun, memorable melodies. (These are very different from the compilations of "Sunday School songs" that some of us grew up with--I love them; I am grateful for them, but you can only take so much of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and "Father Abraham".)

The yellow-covered CD, called "Faith", came from Aunt Lena and has a great version of Ephesians 2:8 on it.

For it is by grace you have been saved
Through faith
And this is not from yourselves
It is the gift of God
It is the gift of God
(Repeat)

And then this chorus, which is sheer, melodic joy:

La-di-da
La-di-da
Oh, not from yourselves
It is the gift of God
It is the gift of God
La-di-da
(Repeat)

Typing the lyrics out just doesn't do it justice; it really is great. Simple, truthful, fun. What more could you ask for in a ditty written for kids?

So Meg looooooves this song. She calls it "Na-nee-oh" (La-di-da) and asks for it about six times a day. Part of this is because, as I mentioned before, we have gotten into the habit of having dance parties in the kitchen when this song plays. Usually, if Dave is home and Matthew's awake, it works like this: Dave holds Meg and Mommy holds Matthew. If Matthew's napping, I dance alone (or sometimes with one of the refrigerator magnets--I have my choice of frog, lion, elephant or lobster). We bop and sway around the kitchen, sometimes in a little clump, sometimes separately. My favorite is when both kids are awake, because then we use certain parts of the song to suddenly lean in so that their faces are just inches from one another's. This makes them both giggle at the same time, which causes my heart to soar.

I so cherish these times that we share as a family--watching my kids smile, watching my husband dance (not a common occurrence), singing aloud one of the greatest truths of my faith. Praying that someday my kids will sing it too--not just with their voices but in their hearts. True, when Meg wants to do the whole routine three, four times in a row, I eventually decline, on the grounds that holding a 15 pound or a 30 pound child and dancing for ten minutes straight is pretty exhausting. But if she comes back for more an hour later, it's hard to say no.

Typically when Meg wants to hear our boppin' song she will ask for it by name or just say, "Sing? Sing?" But the other day I was sitting here, at the computer, and Meg came up and put her hand on my knee. "Beense?" she asked. "Beense?"

"Beans?" I replied.

"Noooo. Beense?"

"'Beense?' Sweetie, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying."

Meg sighed, took a really exaggerated stance, spun around in a circle and said in a truly condescending, do-I-have-to-spell-it-out-for-you tone of voice: "Beeeeeeeeeeense?"

"Oh!" said I, finally getting it. "Do you want to dance?"

"Okay!" she said brightly, as if it had been my idea in the first place.

So I got up out of the chair, picked up my little girlie, turned on the music and... danced.

La di da, baby.