Reality, Toddler-Style

My Little Shmoo is getting to be a bigger Shmoo these days. Something happened to her when her hair got long enough for pigtails -- even though they can barely be classified as pigtails when they only contain sixteen strands of hair -- that made her light years older in an instant. She's figured out some majorly important words, and though they don't always mean what she thinks they mean, I can come up with some new ways to be patient with her if I take her literally. For instance, here's a common conversation in our house:

Shmoo: Mommy, I have lollipop?
Me: No, Shmoo, it's 8:30 in the morning. It's not a good idea to eat a lollipop this early.
Shmoo: I have lollipop, yes.
Me: Sorry, sweetie. No lollipop right now. Would you like some more cereal?
Shmoo: I. Have. Lollipop.

Notice the progression there. She started with a question. Then she went to the answer she hoped to get ("yes"), and then she moved to insisting on the facts as she wanted them to be. From here, it goes like this if I am not in a good mood:

Me: No, Shmoo, I said no lollipop. If you ask again, I'll tell you the same thing. You can have cheese, or yogurt, or more cereal, or some cantaloupe.
Shmoo: I REALLY have lollipop! I REALLY have lollipop! (crying)

Now, if I am able just accept that, in Shmoo's mind, the lollipop is here, and she has it, and I am creating for her a dissonance between the reality in her head and the reality in my kitchen, things would go better. When I can do this, the conversation is more likely to go another way:

Me: Yes, the lollipops are yours. You'll have one this afternoon. Let's put it on the top of the fridge so we don't forget to eat it later. You also have new stickers. Where are they? Let's go look for them!
Shmoo: I really have stickers!

Shmoo is a different kid than Doodlebug. Doodlebug was exceptionally easy-going about that stuff, and she had no big sister taking up any of my attention. The conversation would have ended at "would you like some cereal?" for Doodlebug, so I am still getting my footing here. Sometimes I feel like a new parent. Shmoo is so stubborn, so strong-willed, so just-plain-strong! She will get everything she wants in the world as long as she goes after it.

I am still getting to know her; being a person of words, it's easier for me to know a child who can talk, and she's only now talking in ways I can really understand. I am awed by the things she says sometimes, and the concepts she can grasp. Here are some gems. I am not changing any of the order of the words as she says them, just writing them in English instead of the baby pronunciation that turns "let's" into "less" and "school" into "cool", etc.:

Let's go get my sister Doodlebug at her school!

My Daddy so silly!

What's that say in the book?

Mommy, here I come! I give you hug attack!

Recall that just over a year ago, I wasn't so sure that my Shmoo would live to make sentences. As I sit on the floor and feel her toes dig into the waistline of my jeans so she can climb up my back, as I brush her soft soft blond hair into tiny pigtails, as I watch her run full force across the house to greet True at the door each night, I still find myself sighing with relief and joy. I came so close to losing her...and now, I'm really and truly finding her.