Sasha's powers of language, and, in turn, of persuasion, are growing by leaps and bounds. An example: She demanded and more or less ate dinner about ten minutes before we did this evening. As a result, she was stuck in her booster seat with nothing to do for quite some time while we finished our own meals. Thus ensued a fascinating conversation.
Sasha: Mommy? Mommy, out.
Mommy: No, honey, I'm not done eating yet. You have to wait until mommy or daddy is done.
After repeating minor variations on this theme for about five, maybe six times, Sasha developed a new tactic.
Sasha: Daddy, mommy, daddy.
Clearly this means "Daddy, it is obvious to all of us that mommy is being unreasonable. Why don't you have a talk with her and show her the error of her ways?"
Daddy: No, honey. We're still eating dinner. We'll let you out of your seat when we are done eating.
Sasha: Daddy, out! Out!
Again, obviously, this means, "Fine, pops, if you won't talk to mommy, will you at least let me out yourself?" This got her only the same response from daddy she had already received. Thus she tries a new angle:
Sasha: Mommy, baba.
Mommy: No, it's not time for a bottle. It's almost bath time, and then you'll go to bed.
Sasha: Mommy? Out. Out!
This entire conversation had a certain amount of recursion in it; moreover, once it was done, we ran through the whole thing again two more times, like some sort of fugue. One must give Sasha a great deal of credit for leveraging her mastery of a few words into such a compelling and crafty argument.
Soon, her vocabulary will outnumber the Oreos in a package, and then... then we will see some true masterpieces of persuasive thought. I can hardly wait.
My kitchen is: Clean and spicy. I made three dozen cranberry muffins this morning and got my nails done. Looks like I'm feeling better, again!
Posted by andrea at December 22, 2003 09:45 PM