July 2010

It appears Caroline has a new favorite word – one to replace “woof”.

What’s the word we now hear with great frequency?  “Mine!”

I wonder how she learned this word.  Surely not from her older sister saying this word to her approximately one hundred times a day.

Lest you think Caroline is simply parroting this new word and that it holds no meaning to her as of yet, I’ll leave you with this story.

Caroline was lying on the bed next to Dallas.  She had her pacifier in her mouth.  She pulled her paci out, put it behind her back, looked Dallas squarely in the eyes and cried, “MINE!”

Caroline’s favorite word to say is “Woof!”  She says it all the time.  Sometimes the word is warranted, like when we actually see a dog.  Other times it’s a little more mysterious as to why she is woofing.  For example, she’ll be quietly playing with a toy in her room.  All of a sudden, her hand will urgently shoot to her mouth, rip her pacifier out, and she’ll give an enthusiastic “Woof!”  Then she’ll replace the paci and continue playing leaving me to wonder if she suffers from some sort of animal-noise Tourette Syndrome.

Every animal is a woof.  Many people are woofs.  Sometimes even toys are woofs.

I’ve been trying to broaden her repertoire of animal sounds.  We happen to have a little toy horse that is right by where I change her diaper.  During diaper changes, I usually give her the horse, tell her it’s a horse, and that horses say, “Neigh!”  This lesson is not going over very well.  In fact, I may have created a new problem.

The last time we went outside, our neighbor’s dog was on the lawn.  Caroline immediately smiled, started bouncing up and down, pointed to the dog and, for the first time in her life without being prompted, she heartily said, “Neigh!”