My girl wows me

We noticed tonight that if we sang parts of Daisy's favorite songs, or recited nursery rhymes she likes, and then stopped to let her fill in the blanks--she could. It was sort of mind-blowing, how many of them she knows. She did this over and over again for different songs and nursery rhymes, filling in key words. But even more astounding to us, she finally just started singing along with Mark as he sang "Wings like a Dove." I didn't even know that song was one of her favorites, or that she ever listened to it in a particular way. It kind of freaked me out, truly, to hear her _singing_, lines at a time (in a babyish way, of course, but recognizably the right words). She was also roughly on key, her notes fitting in more or less with Mark's. This girl wows me!!!!!

She can also count to six flawlessly, and then to ten with mistakes :-) "Seven" and "ten" are not her favorite numbers, apparently. She has a bunch of sentences now and long phrases. I should see if I can remember some of them: "Mama, knock on doors" (she says this when I go to the bathroom, and comes knocking on the door--doesn't like me to have any privacy, that girl); "Up and down, up and down"; "Ready, set, go"; "Ten apples up on top" (of course); "Bump on head" (and "Bop head"); "Clap hanties"; "Wash hands"; "Find Wacky" (our cat); "Flamos in cup!" (as she insistently inserts her "flamos," her two pink flamingo magnets, into a cup); and lots others that I really should be recording. She speaks in long sentences but sometimes I can only make out a few words, although I know she is intending more. She sits with her books for the longest time, narrating them in this hilariously authoritative voice. She'll clear her throat and say, "One day," as she begins (because, hey, that's how a book often begins, isn't it?) and "The end" at the end. And in the middle, there's lots of babble with appropriate inflections that sound sort of like the way we've been reading the books to her--very good imitations of our sounds and rhythms. But more and more, I notice it isn't just babble; that for every page, she's saying multiple words that really apply to what's going on. I honestly stopped writing down her verbal stuff in my book for her because I couldn't keep up with her anymore. She says many new things every day and never fails to surprise me. And she is so damned funny! I can hardly stand it. We are always laughing at something she's saying (or crying-- I have to say that hearing her sing tonight made tears spring into my eyes). The small detail alone that she calls us "Mamas" and "Dadas" (plural) tends to crack me up consistently. She has some funny personality quirks, too-- so, when she wants to nurse and I won't let her, she flings herself on the floor and yells "Bonk!" (signifying the bonking of her head on the floor). And as I've mentioned before, "Ding dong! Ding dong!" is her distress cry, also so amusing to us that today we deliberately took the "flamos" away in the hopes that she'd yell it. She is also deeply attached to a particular stuffed doggie, a stuffed monkey, and various other animals. And she is VERY deeply attached to particular books, which she specifically names and asks for.

Well, that's my update for now. She wows me!