"What's it, Mama?"

That is the phrase of pre-Spring, it seems. Michigan can't decide if it wants to hold onto Winter a little longer or fully embrace the Spring. This has resulted in slush, mud, dirty snow, and restless babies. I'm not sure why Lilah chose to pick up "What's it, Mama", as opposed to "What's that" or "What is it?" Every time she points and says it, I am reminded of A Wrinkle in Time with Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit. Maybe Li's just channeling my love of L'Engle.

Either way, Lilah now requires near-constant identification of everything around her. If it's a person, she points and says, "Name?" This is due to the fact that prior to now, she simply referred to strangers as "Name". As in, "Hi, Name." I discouraged this. Lilah in her sassy confidence had a way of making people feel irrelevant and superfluous. "I don't actually need to know who you are. You're just kind of there. I'm the real deal." "Hi, Name. Please cookie?" It was quite obvious the identity of the person was not the priority. Now, thankfully, she points to a person and turns to me. "Name, Mama?" I tell her, she repeats it to the best of her ability, and carries on with her conversation. Social graces at 2. She's getting it down.

With objects, she points and says, "What's it, Mama?" It runs together and sounds much closer to "Whatsit, Mama?" I tell her and again, she repeats it to the best of her ability. Usually this requires chanting it over and over until everyone around not only knows that she knows what it is, but also regrets that she every learned the word. Frank (the owner of the coffee shop on our street) caught her in a babbling conversation with herself the other day and said, "I can't wait for you to talk!" I stared at him. "Well you know what I mean. Talk in full sentences. Conversationally. More so than she already does." I shook my head.
"We don't encourage that, Frank. We don't talk about it." He laughed. He's well aware of my saucy little baby's tendency for stepping on figurative toes.

One of the baristas held out her arms last week and said, "Lilah! Give me a hug! I missed you!" Lilah ran laughing into her arms and said, "Talia! I miss you too!" The other barista said, "I want a hug! I missed you too, Lilah!" My daughter turned up her little nose and walked past her. Granted, no one really likes that particular barista, but that doesn't make it easier to explain Lilah's blatant snub.

I will try to update more frequently. It seems like the older she gets, the harder it is to find time for little things like this. If she's awake and I try to find time to do things on the computer, she mostly just smacks the keyboard until I stop. If she's asleep, a hundred seemingly more important things are usually already stacked up for me to accomplish. Today I just decided to ignore those things (laundry, sweeping the floors, baking, yoga...) and take a few minutes to blog. Hopefully I can get better at ignoring my household responsibilities in the future.