Gush

I'm not going to lie--a fair amount of the time I find Willow maddening, tiresome, and even somewhat boring (usually during the tenth repetition of Alouette or Jingle Bells).  And during another big chunk of time, we're just kind of going about our lives--happy, loving, but not particularly noticing one thing or another about each other.

And then there are weeks like this one, when I notice things that have probably been here all the time, but for some reason are now jumping up and waving their hands in the air.  First among them is language--Willow still isn't much of a chatterbox, in that she will essentially not talk for long periods of time, but what she does say can be a little disconcerting.  Like "The wind blew the leaves in the trees and made a loud noise and then the noise disappeared."  Or "We're going in the car on the New Jersey Turnpike to Sandy Hook in New Jersey so we need our bucket and shovel and blanket and towels and chips so we can jump in the waves."  Or "The light is glimmering.  It's the reflection of the water."  The vocabulary, and the level of detail in what she remembers, are a little terrifying. 

Much of the vocab comes from the books we read--books that she quotes constantly.  We go to the beach, just like Nancy and Timmy go to the beach.  We eat string beans just like Gloria eats string beans.  I know what she's referring to most of the time, Dave and Toaster and RockNoodle know what she's referring to a lot of the time, but nobody else does.  It's wonderful, it's amazing...it's not so great for chatting with other kids.  She does like Elmo, at least.

Willow's joy in language extends so far that she will play rhyming games for as long as you're willing to play them with her, and she'll change the lyrics of songs to suit her purposes--"Eat some avocado, skip to my lou, eat some strawberries, skip to my lou, drink some water, skip to my lou my darling"--and correct me if I don't remember the French word for a body part she has requested for Alouette--"Elbow is not French, Mommy."

Plus, she ridiculously beautiful.  I mean, seriously.