Just for Me

The list of words she's mastered has reached into the hundreds, with new ones every day. She knows piano, picture, purple and puppy. She knows wagon, waffle, water and window. She counts to ten (who cares if "two" gets repeated twice and five comes after eight?). She knows her colors (who cares if blue and red are interchangeable?). She sings the alphabet song (LMNOP might be a garbled mess, but at least she's trying!). Here are some of the other things Sadie says:

1. It used to be that I would habitually greet her each morning, as I walked into her room, by saying "Oh, hi." Somewhere along the line, she picked it up. Now when she rounds a corner and sees me making dinner in the kitchen, she says, "Oh, hi."

2. We have been working to teach her the concept of possession -- something she now understands and takes very seriously. "Mama beads," she says wistfully, when I walk her past the necklaces hanging from the mirror on my vanity.

3. A signed poster from TAM6 hangs above our living room couch -- one of my most prized possessions, a gift from my Mom. The poster includes images of Phil Plait, Richard Wiseman, Adam Savage -- all geeky white dudes with glasses. Occasionally she'll glance up at the poster, point to each picture, and identify each one as "Daddy."

4. More than two of anything equals "many." When she gets tired of pointing out each individual Poster Daddy, she will sometimes sweep her hand in a gesture of inclusion and finish with, "Many Daddy."

5. While she pronounces most words remarkably well, there are a few words whose incorrect pronunciation she clings to stubbornly. For the longest time, strawberries were "shaw-shees." Upside down still comes out as "Uppa-sown" so regularly that we're starting to pronounce it that way too. She still insists her own name is pronounced "See-hee."

6. If asked to do something she doesn't want to do, like turn off Elmo or eat a final bite of chicken, her response is typically the following: "No? No? No? Okay." The final "okay" does not signify resignation, but rather signals her satisfaction that you understood her: "I have no interest in this chicken. It tastes like butt, and at this moment I'd like to go back to watching 'Abby's Flying Fairy School,' so let's put an end to this farce. Okay."

7. Come to think of it, "okay" serves as an all-purpose punctuation mark to any statement.

8. She has a canny understanding of how useful inflection can be. She doesn't just ask for a cookie -- her eyes grow wide, she half-smiles and her voice lifts into a hopeful question to which she can't help but provide her own answer: "Cookie? Cookie? Okay."

9. While she understands that the Magic Word is "please," (as in, "Cookie?" "Sadie, what's the magic word?" "PEASE."), we still have to remind her every time she asks for something that it helps to tack a "please" onto the end. The exception are the two commands "up" and "help," which have been corrupted into "uppease" and "heppease."

10. She celebrates when we pull into our driveway with "we're home!" and when we walk in the door she greets the dogs with "Hi, guys." She calls each dog by name with love and affection in her voice. Right before initiating a one-sided wrestling match with whoever is closest.