Communicating - Toddler Style

Our Sophie is quite chatty these days.
This was the conversation I overheard yesterday between her and Bailey, whiney cat extraordinaire.

Bailey: "Rarrrrrr!" (meaning, "I want kibble")
Sophie: "meooowww"
Bailey: "Rarrrrrr!!" (meaning, "Why are you mocking me!?")
Sophie: "meooowww"
Bailey: "RARRRRRRRR!!" (meaning, "MOM!!! She's making fun of me!! I am going to go poop on the carpet soon!")
Sophie: "woof!"

Sophie's language skills are developing at an amazing rate. Everyday lately, there's a new word. "meow", "woof", "Oh wow!", "uh oh", "NO", "No daddy!" These are some of the words she picked up over christmas. And "no no no no no no" aside, I could listen to her babble all day. She has the sweetest voice ever....except when she is screaming in frustration.

Frustration is the flipside to her increasing toddler-ness. While she is learning a lot of words, she is far from being able to communicate everything she wants. And since I was too lazy to teach her sign language (who knew that just buying the book wasn't enough?!") she throws a lot of tantrums when she wants something and we don't understand. For example, I had all the christmas "Kickees" (cookies) in a clear tupperware container with a blue lid. Apparently, Sophie memorized that container. The other night I put dinner leftovers in the container and before I could get it in the fridge, Sophie saw it on the counter and came running, hands reaching for the countertop and a very insistant "Ahhhhhh!! Ahhhhh!! Ehhhhhhh!!!!!" loudly escaping her voicebox. I didn't know what she wanted! I offered her everything under the sun. "Juice?" "Cracker?" "Francois the frog?". All those items were angrily thrown across the room and she started beating on my legs in frustration. Finally it dawned on me!! "COOKIE!?" Well, her eyes lit up and she flashed me a megawatt smile. "Kick-keeeeeeee!" After fetching a cookie from the freezer, defrosting it in the microwave for 9 very looooong seconds, I made Sophie a happy little toddler. Cookies make everything better. Just wait until she learns about bacon.

-jl