the double take

percy does some amazing things. a couple of nites ago during her bath she was proudly showing us her toes by holding her foot above the water level and pointing to them while saying "toes." she then swapped feet and said "more toes." paul and i literally stopped and looked at each in that comic 'did you you just hear what i heard?' double-take fashion. it seems a big step to us to understand that she has some toes on one foot and 'more toes' on the other, not just toes on both feet.

her vocabulary is exploding. she knows and says: 'cado for avocado, 'nana for banana, num-num for food, tea, juice, more, tissue, toes, dumble, help, park, train, keys, cat, raffles, bath, nose, walk and a few more that i don't recall just at present.

i think she also understands just about everything that is addressed to her too. she knows when we are asking her a question, and nearly invariably says "no", in answer. i suspect because we generally ask questions when she'd rather keep doing what she is doing now; eg. 'percy, do you want to come downstairs with mamma?' 'no', i'd rather continue pulling all your scarves out onto the floor. the yes answer, accompanied by a beautiful slow nodding of her head is most often the answer to questions about going to the park, having a bath or occasionally eating.

she understands instructions like 'gentle', 'walk', 'big step' and 'jump.' tho she still doesn't know how to jump just bending her knees or going up on tip toe. her feet don't actually leave the ground.

she'll test the rules all the time tho, even when she knows them well. for instance, we pull her high chair up to the dining table instead of using the click on table attachment. this means she can get her feet on the table if she pushes back a little. the strict rule is no feet on the table. she'll put her feet up as often as we can tolerate asking her to put them down and taking them off the table for her. she grins manically, giggles and up they go again. we persist, firmly not laughing along with her!

just to explain two of the words she uses... raffles is her favourite teddy that she sleeps with every nite and nap, and dumble is the word we've chosen to describe female genitalia. i'm opposed to vag... because there's so much more to female genitalia than a vag... i don't think one word does it justice and we can't really explain to percy that she pees out her vag... can we, that's a lie. and urethra is probably a little difficult to explain to a sixteen and a half month old.

should we end up one day having a boy we'll have to decide on something for males too. why don't we use 'genitalia'? dumble is a lot easier!

we're going to have to curb our swearing too or before we know it she'll be cussing along in her little cherub voice.