It is amazing how quickly Annabel’s ability to communicate has grown of late. Not only has she started to say “I love you” and “Peace out” ( which you’ve seen for yourself if you watched last Friday’s video), but now she even asks for things using full sentences!

bubbles
“So I says, Florence, I says…”

Okay. “Full sentences” may be pushing it. In fact, sometimes she sounds a little like someone speaking broken English and it cracks me up. For example she will say stuff like:

“Go outside? Yes?”

And…

“Eat food. Okay. OKAY?”

Annie would probably be offended by this comparison and say, “Broken English? I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a native born English speaker!”

At other times Annie reminds me of an American tourist in a foreign country trying to get by with a phrase book. She will enter a room and say, “Hi! What are you doing?” When I reply with an actual explanation of what I’m doing,  she will just stare at me like a deer tourist caught in the headlights and then reply, “Hi! What are you doing?”

While Annie’s saying “What are you doing?” is likely just mimicry of what Heather and I ask each other (a lot, I guess, if Annie has picked up on it), Annie and I DO have actual conversations now, something which is by far the most mind blowing aspect of her new-found chattiness. And our current conversations go a LOT more in depth than this argument we had a few months ago.

This morning, for example, Annie tugged at my knee and said, “Dora?  Dora?” Knowing that this meant she wanted strawberry yogurt (it comes in a package with “Dora the Explorer” on the front), I strapped Annie into her high chair and fed her the goods.

I then decided that I could eat too, so I dropped an English Muffin into the toaster. A couple minutes later, after I had pulled out the muffin and buttered it up,  Annie said, “More breh?  More breh?” (“Breh” is Annie speak for bread.)

I sighed and handed the kid half my breakfast. Little Miss Demanding polished it off, then asked, “Cheese?  More Cheese?”

“No,” I replied. “Finish your Dora first.”

Annie picked her cup of yogurt off her high chair, placed it on the table next to her, and said, “All done.”

Surprised/impressed by her pluck, I gave Annie some cheese.  As she chomped on it like a little mouse, I picked up her yogurt cup and started eating it so it wouldn’t go to waste. The minute I finished Annie eyed me, suddenly alarmed, and cried, “Dora? Dora?”

“Uh….”

“DORA? DORA?”

“All done! You said you were all done!”

“DORA! WAH! DORA!”

I stared at Annie as she freaked out, then, after a beat of thought:

“Uh, uh, uh…. Cookie?”

Annie calmed down immediately.

“Cookie.  Yes.”

I gave Annie a cookie and she took it, smiling.

“Heh.  Heh.  Cookie.”

Yeah, I know how that looked.  Annie totally owned that conversation in her broken English. Tomorrow will be different though. I promise. Er, hope.