Word Games

Abigail is becoming more and more vocal, and has been able to communicate in semi-full sentences for a couple of months. I am amused and ever surprised at the things that she comes up with!

Anyone with kids knows that, well, 'kids say the darndest things', and certainly Abigail is no exception. Thanks to her father and his twisted sense of humor, she's also been learning such colorful (and not socially acceptable) expressions as "fart", "burp" and a few others. I have been trying to re-route her to more "kosher" definitions, like "passing gas", or "toot", "break wind" for example.

Tonight, after dinner, I suddenly detected that Abigail may have gone number two. So I asked her, as I usually do, "Honey, did you make a poopie?". She looked at me straight in the eye, and with the most serious look in her face, she responded: "Abbie toot a poopie!". A close examination of her clean diaper revealed that, in fact, Abbie had simply "toot a poopie".

Another thing that she's been saying lately, in perfect English, is "Mamy (or Daddy), sit down, I'll drive". She says that while opening the car front door, which she is now able to do by standing on her tippy-toes and pressing the unlock button on the door handle. She invariably bursts out laughing because she really does think that she'll drive. At the first sign that she will be sitting on her car-seat, after all, she changes her tune.

Yesterday, another funny one: Shelby started barking loudly out of nowhere while Abigail was quietly playing on her own. Abbie got reasonably upset, and ran to me, saying: "Mamy, Shelby scared the baby! Shelby scared the baby!! Oh no, Shelby, oh no!" Of course, right after that, Abbie turned to the dog and told her "Kiet, Shelby! Kiet!".

Indeed.

Lights dimming on Sesame Street (classic Abbie)

Two days ago I walked into my daughter's bedroom to find a rather unusual, if not slightly disturbing, sight: all of her Sesame Street pals (the ever-ubiquitous Elmo, Zoe, Grover, Big Bird, Snuffy and Cookie Monster) were laying face-down/fanny-up on two of her bookcase shelves, as depicted below:


I was really puzzled -- the scene was obviously not the result of chance, but rather of a carefully planned design. It was, well, purposely done! I called Christopher at work to find out what he knew about it, since he was playing with her in her room the night before while I was preparing dinner.

He said, "Oh, yeah, *that*!", and chuckled, "Your daughter did that -- I told her that it was time to go 'night-night', to say goodbye to her little friends, who were going to bed, too. So, one by one, she picked them up, and laid them down on the shelf, on their tummies, saying to each of them: "Cookie Monsteh sleepin'; Emo sleepin'; Yowe sleepin'; K-nuffy sleepin'; Goovah sleepin'; Big Burd sleepin'!"!"

I looked at Abbie, who was putting stickers on Shelby, and I could not stop laughing. So much for a sinister display -- and I hurried to take a picture of it!

'I Love You'

My little girl told me that she loves me, today: "Ai ouwe you too!"
Oh, what a glorious day!

Abbie & Co.

Abbie had a great day today: she went to the park, where she met her little buddies William and Max (Weeam and Maxxxxxx).  She enjoys the company of her friends, she loves playing with them, following them around, and being close to them.

Right after our little park outing, we went to Sweet Life Cafe, in old town Fairfax, where we all sat down for lunch. While there, Abigail exchanged sweet hugs and a couple of kisses with William, and Max also got sweet with her. He started poking her and yelling "tickle!!! tickle!!!". Abbie thought that was the funniest of things. It really stuck with her, because when we got home, she starting poking my leg and going "ticke!!! ticke!!!", laughing out loud when I pretended to be tickled by her little finger jammed on my thigh. Later on, at dinner, she said "Maxxxx, ticke!!!!" And then went on, with the sweetest of smiles, "Weeam, day, fun!".

Yes, it was.

Hobo Abbie

The sweet little town of Clifton, VA has been mentioned here before.  It's a favorite place to take Abbie for us because of the quiet neighborhood, the fun playground in the park and the overall hometown feel of the place.

At the North end of Clifton, a railway runs through. Clifton arose as a railroad town, afterall.  The rails are still used as Amtrak and freight trains thunder along them, even though they don’t stop there anymore.

Next to the tracks is an old red caboose. They have left it available for people to climb on to get a faint taste of what the railroads meant to America.

I have a lot of railroad blood in me.  My great grandfather was a brakeman for the railroad for some time.  One of his sons, my grandfather’s brother, also worked for the railroad in his younger years as a welder. Another son of his had a love for trains, emphasized by an elaborate model train set which dropped down from the ceiling in his basement. Finally, my own grandfather -- who passed along his love for trains to me by taking me to a park in downtown Salt Lake City to play on the old steam train there. I can also remember seeing the Bicentennial Amtrak train with him when it stopped in Salt Lake City in 1976.

The Americana in me also comes from my other great grandfather who was a "hobo" during the Great Depression, walking the highways and jumping boxcars across the country three times.

So naturally, some of this railroad blood runs in Abbie.  While her mommy and I were with her in Clifton today, I wanted to get a few pictures of her on the tracks. Abbie had no reservations about walking the rails and ties, studying the rocks on the ground and the wooden planks which held the tracks down. She too loves trains. She has a couple of trains made of wood or plastic which she loves to play with. When we are in Clifton, she first heads straight to the “choo-choo” in the playground. And, of course, at seemingly random times in the car, she’ll shout out, “Choo-choo twain!”

One day I hope to share more of that railroad Americana with her by getting her a little electric model railroad, build on a sheet of plywood like the one I had when I was her about her age. There’s a wonderful fascination she has with trains that I hope she never loses.

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