her inner world revealed

Betsy seems to be maturing by leaps and bounds this week -- at least in certain areas. I'm quite certain she'll be carrying her "silky" off to college, but that's not a battle I'm willing to fight quite yet. She's still young enough for one, isn't she?

The main area of growth is her language. She's got a great vocabulary, but many multisyllabic words were just a bit much for her. And there's certain sounds she's always struggled with (something the teacher in me inherently catalogs: z-, l-, and r-; many consonant blends like sn-, cl-, bl-, dr-, etc.) but with her dad's encouragement, she finally mastered "snake" or, more accurately, mastered "ssssss (pause) NAKE!" Lately that tool of pausing between difficult sounds helped her say the word "happiness" right on the first try. I expected a bunch of garbled, incoherent syllables to be repeated (as usual,) and then she just said it, plain as day: "happy (pause) ness." Good enough for me!

She's also finally putting several words together in interesting ways. I've been waiting to hear the single words flesh themselves out into mini-sentences for a long time, and while she's been doing it for a while, it was always the typical command stuff: "Book. Read it," or "Orange, please momma," "Coat, thank you, momma," stuff like that. But gradually, we're getting more insight into Betsyland: "Crayons fun, thank you momma." (She'd gone to hide behind the counter so she could throw all 64 on the floor... then proceeds to thank me?!? Kids are too funny.)

Today she wandered around the house with her rather hideous doll, carefully held up to her chest. The doll was wrapped in a silky and being patted on the back. "Baby napping time," she kept saying, walking around the kitchen island endlessly. (There's no way she remembers how many nights we did this very thing with her, is there?) This was the kind of stuff I knew she thought about on the inside. To finally hear about that interior world, locked up as a secret for so long, well it just tickles me.

As I was singing in the kitchen today, she asked me to sing one song again. This lead to me asking her which songs she liked, and she told me one or two. I told her a few I liked, and got her to name a few more. I know I'm just too in love with encouraging her language skills, but I couldn't help myself! She told me she likes "Daddy Home," (Wheels on the) "Bus," "Happiness," and another one I couldn't quite understand.

Too bad Scott's off in California and missing all of this fun stuff! It's watching this progress first-hand that makes me realize how much I treasure full-time parenthood, even when it comes at a cost. I continually count my blessings for this home and the renters who so graciously pay our mortgage each month. In spite of it, we continually drag ourselves further into debt, bit by bit, but I am happy to put my college degree aside to have these moments captured by a (usually) loving parent. At least, I think I capture most of them. I'm sure for many more she's somewhere else in the house being all insanely cute and I'm blogging, cleaning, or cooking, totally oblivious.

(12/18 edit: She's got a great memory, too! Every night before I put her to bed, we talk about what happened that day: what we ate, where we went, who we saw, etc. I can't believe some of the things she remembers that were very insignificant and happened much earlier in the day. Today while we were singing, she asked for Itsy Bitsy Spider, although the words were so jumbled I thought I'd never understand her. We haven't sang that song in weeks and weeks, but apparently she likes it!)

Oh -- one part of mothering I'd be okay missing out on? Betsy pushing the alarm in the library elevator today. Awesome. And awesomely loud.