The power of suggestion

It doesn't seem that I blog because I have one story about Tasman, like Sean does. I usually think, "I should blog about that" a number of times in the day when she does something that I think is funny. In general I think she's a really delightful kid. Probably all kids are, really. It is fun to see how a person learns and interprets the world. Anyhow, this is what Tasman is up to these days.

She has learned how to jump, so every now and then it is her preferred method of traveling. It's not a terribly efficient way to move, but it is fun to watch her jump just because she can. Tasman especially likes to jump in her room before bed. She'll jump from the bathroom door after her bath over to the changing table to put on her pajamas and then she jumps over to daddy to read a book. I'm sure the neighbors love it. We should send them a link to this blog so they'll know what that thumping noise is every night.

Tas also has started to talk along with Backyardigans episodes she's familiar with. She'll do the actions too. So, it's the mostly unintelligible, one-woman variety show in our living room every day. She does better with the songs. Yesterday she jabbered along with Pablo while he talked about surfing and wiping out and then sang "Surf's up. Ho Daddy!" While dancing around the room. She gets the sentence lengths and some of the words right, so clearly she has some memory for the way the episode goes. It's amusing.

She also mutters along with Sean or I as we say her nightly prayers. We have a hard time not chuckling. In an effort to reinforce her good behavior, we started praising her enthusiastically for being reverent if she keeps her arms folded and her eyes closed during the prayer. Well, it just didn't take very long before she was jumping up after the "amen", clapping exuberantly and saying, "Yay! Nana so reverent!" She obviously has a healthy sense of accomplishment.

My favorite new Tas-ism though, is what inspires the title of this entry. In the last 2 weeks Tasman has started saying, "alright." The word itself is not as funny as the way she uses it. I think all parents probably do a fair amount of parroting what their child says since the child won't say the word exactly the right way and repeating it back is a way to both model the correct pronunciation and make sure that you've really understood what the kid wants. Well, Tasman has taken up saying "alright" every time I ask her a yes/no question she wants to respond affirmatively to. It usually goes something like this:
Tasman will say: "Wanna watch Bardans?" (everything is a question still - even when she's just making a statement and Bardans is how she now says Backyardigans.)
I'll say (to confirm): "You want to watch Backyardigans?"
And in her sweet little voice Tasman will respond: "awright."

This exchange always makes it seem that whatever it is she's now going to do is my suggestion. I doubt very much that Tasman will be a wishy-washy person. After all, she comes from such opinionated and stubborn parents. Let's hope the "alright" is a sign of flexibility in her personality that allows her to go with the flow. If she can learn that now, she'll be way better off than her uptight mom.

Once I get started I seem to think of lots of other teeny things she does that make me laugh, but to spare everyone a novel, I'll have to wait until next time. I will post some pictures - because I love looking at pictures. I was going through some of our old photos this morning and found these of Tas taken this time last year. She grew up so fast! Guess that's what happens.