Our Little Genius...seriously

Emmeline's vocabulary and intelligence is surprising and thrilling me every day. I am so proud of her. She started saying a few more complex sentences in the past week. When she is looking for a toy, identifying a character in a book or playing hide-and-seek with Paul or I, she says "There she is!" (always "she" probably because it is just us girls most of the week). She is also picking up expressions that Paul and I say without realizing that we are saying them. She has copied Paul's "Oh man!" and my "Ooffda!", though hers is just "Oof!" She is also picking up inflections that we use. Her "wow!" sounds just like mine; I didn't realize this until I exclaimed "wow!" while watching TV on Wednesady and Paul teased, "I thought we put Emmeline to bed."

Emmeline also started to understand the concept of numbers, which is actually pretty abstract so I am incredibly impressed. Whenever she has two of something (usually her baby dolls) she says "two!". She can also identify the letter "B"; she tries the others, but is usually wrong. Still, I am thrilled about "B"! At least she knows the name of the letters even if she can't identify them yet. She knows the titles of most of her books; if you ask her to bring a specific one to you she is able to identify it and say the title, though in her own toddler-speak. Hop on Pop sound like "Pop pop" and Everywhere Babies sounds like "Evvy".

Yes, I am bragging (hey, it IS my blog) but these examples also reveal how language (and behavior) is learned. Not just learning how to say words, but what they mean, how they are inflected, how to use them, etc. We are constantly reminded now that we have to watch what we say and how we say it. Emmeline has picked up some of the not-so-nice things that we say to the cats when they are being mischievous, one being "Hey! Hey! Hey!". She has recently started to repeat this when we are trying to get her to do something against her will. It sounds pretty awful when she decides to say this in public. We have made a resolution to always speak in calm tones and use gentle language. I hope we remember our resolution when she is throwing her food from her high chair or coloring on the 'fridge.