Toddler - Adult Miscommunications

 

Poor two year olds.  I guess I finally get why they throw temper tantrums.  Ear infections really are no picnic at all.  Not to mention they worked so hard for two years to master the art of speaking, and we still can't understand them.  Or is it just Hallie and I that struggle?

Hanna was born four weeks ago, tomorrow, and ever since Hallie first met her she has been talking a lot about "Hanna's fire".  Or sometimes, even more baffling, Hanna wil be crying, and Hallie will very calmly and apparently in an effort to help, say "fire".  I, of course, had no idea what she meant.  Part of the trouble stems from a lack of a use of prepositions and verbs.  Is she trying to tell me that Hanna is "on" fire?  Or that she "sees" a fire?  Or is she contemplating whether or not Hanna would "like" a fire?

I finally figured it out today.  (Perhaps most of you are more savvy than I and already know what she was talking about.)  Today they were both on my lap, Hallie on bottom holding Hanna on top.  Quite the feat to arrange that without hurting anyone tiny.  Hanna started fussing, and Hallie began very urgently suggesting "Hanna's fire!"  I could tell she wanted to go get "Hanna's fire", so I said ok, thinking I would finally unravel this mystery.  She was pointing to one of Hanna's blankets, and I tried to figure out how that could be a fire in the mind of a two year old, whom I know knows the word for blanket.  She ran over to the blanket, and from on top of it she picked up: Hanna's paciFIER.  Huh.  Well, I've got to hand it to her.  For a girl who uses the words "chicken" and "kitchen" interchangeably (and if you think about it, they are very similar, just the consonant clusters are switched) she did an excellent job saying part of the word "pacifier". 

Or is this whole miscommunication thing just the beginning of a long road of mother-daughter miscommunications?  Oh dear me, I hope not.

  Tummy Time.

When Hallie was a baby, she hated tummy time. She would scream and scream the whole way through, and Devin would get out a stopwatch and tell her she had to go at least another minute, and to "work through the pain" and all sorts of silly stuff like that.  Then when we felt we had tortured her sufficiently, we'd let her get off her tummy.  She truly hated it.  Hanna doesn't seem to mind, and of course, now that Hanna is doing tummy time, Hallie loves it too.  So does her baby doll.