6/16/2004 05:21:33 PM|||Amy|||One of the things I think I will miss the most when Monkey has become more literate is that she will no longer pronounce "chop chop" as "dop dop." It is so amazingly cute to hear the way she pronounces words. I should record them all here, but there is an unfortunate "in the moment" quality of such recordings. My father bought her a Barbie doll the other day. Her very first Barbie doll that has actually made its way out of the packaging. When I got home, and after I had soothed the broken heart of Bear as he writhed in agony that he wasn't also given a surprise gift, I asked to see it and she put up her hands and said, "my Barbie doll is gone." She wasn't upset. It was just that, as it often happens at our house, she had put the doll down somewhere and completely forgotten where. She knows she'll find it because she always finds the toys she loves. She has a toy Barbie phone that has been missing for weeks, but she knows that when the fates are smiling on her again at last - that she will be directed to its hiding place and it will once again be restored in her rightful possesion... for about five minutes before she loses it again.

So, when I want Monkey to hasten her movements, when I want her to go somewhere with me or do something with me, I will say to her "chop, chop." And she will say back, "dop, dop" and smile, then giggle. I asked her the other day if she was a girl, and she said, "I not a girl. I a Lauren." Then, I asked her what her second name was, and she said, "Girl." My little monkey whose real name is apparently, Lauren Girl. I cannot stress enough how unbelievably cute she is.

In an attempt to assert the strength of her authority, Monkey has also taken to giving us very stern looks when she wants something. Then, she gives us a raspberry and sticks out her tongue. Last night I told her that I was going to get her tongue and take it and send it to her uncle in Ireland. She continued to spit raspberries at me, but with her tongue hidden in her mouth. My beautiful, sweet, unbelievably cute and smart little Monkey.|||108742521370897232|||Dop Dop