The Amazing Toddler Brain. And Mouth.

So I'm never quite sure how much Jane understands and how much is just mimicry.

A week or so ago I was putting Jane in the car and I broke a nail (my nails are so brittle during pregnancy) and I said "Dang It!" Jane looked at me quizzically and so I started explaining that sometimes when we are frustrated we say things like "Dang it!" I went on for a while as we drove to my sister's house. An hour or so later, Jane was overly hungry and thus whiny and my sister and I said something about Jane being ornery and frustrating. Then Jane said "Jane ornery. Dang it."

Jane is really aware of "hurts" lately. Anytime she bumps anything or falls or whatever she fusses a bit and, if I don't say it first, she says "what happened?" or "are you OK?" She'll keep repeating this till I ask her then she tell me what got hurt. And then she asks me to kiss it better. Tonight she was spinning circles and saying "ashes, ashes...fall down." As she went to sit down, she fell a bit on her bum at an odd angle against the bookcase. And you guessed it, Jane asked me to kiss her bum. "Hurt bum. Mommy kiss it? Mommy kiss bum."

Jane's crib is against our bedroom wall. Lately she's taken to kicking it while she's "trying" to go to sleep. After telling her not to kick the wall a few times, and worrying that she'd figure out that kicking the wall was a sure way to bring us into the bedroom, I decided to pull the crib away 10 inches or so. This has worked, but apparently Daddy's words carry more meaning than Mommy's. The last few mornings Eric has gone in to her first. Yesterday she said "Hi" (which is her usual greeting) followed by "Don't kick the wall." This morning it was "Don't kick the wall" followed by "Hi."

Jane seems to have a sensitivity to citrus or at least orangy citrus. Which is frustrating because we both love clementines and Eric doesn't and I can't eat a whole case myself, especially when I have to eat it in secret or risk giving in to her begging. The other day I gave in a little and let her have a few wedges. Later she had some bad, stinging diarrhea. As I was changing her, I told her that oranges give her diarrhea and diarrhea can make your bum hurt. As you can probably guess by this point, she mimicked me and said "diarrhea bum hurt." Over and over a few times. And let me just tell you, diarrhea is one of her cutest words these days, who even knew it could BE a cute word? Anyway, we were at a friend's house later and this friend likes potty humor so I thought she'd get a kick out of hearing Jane say "diarrhea," which she did. Then Jane was offered some fruit salad that had oranges in it, which I pointed out to Jane and she said "Diarrhea bum hurt." I thought, Victory!! She got it.

Or not. This afternoon during stories we were reading the two books that have to do with a baby coming--"Once You Were Inside Your Mommy" and "I'm a Big Sister Now." Then we were talking about baby sister and I decided to see if Jane could say Rhys (the only name that is currently on our list). She started saying all kinds of things like "baby sister Rhys" and "Jane and Rhys sister" and "Rhys in Mommy's belly" etc etc. Then tonight at bedtime I tried to recreate the cuteness and get her to say Rhys again. She said it. But first she said "diarrhea Rhys."