funny at the park

It was actually not so hot last night, so we went to the park after dinner. Casper went into the tot lot and two kids who were there, siblings probably 4 (girl) and 5 (boy) were all over her, asking her "what's your name? how old are you?" I told them that she was not yet two and the little boy said, disbelievingly, "Not two? She's ONE!?!" The the little girl ran over to me and said "I don't know how to speak baby!!!" They started talking to her saying "ga ga ga goo goo goo" and she laughed and laughed. Sweet kids.

language acquisition news

The good news: Casper is speaking in a lot of full, grammatically complete sentences.
The bad news: Fully 85% of these sentences are in the form "I want my ..."

The current possessiveness phase has escalated to the point that when I got out of bed this morning and explained, "Mommy needs to go pee-pee," Casper responded, "MY pee-pee!" I'm reminded of the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

In other news, mr. flea accidentally poked Casper in the eye with a popsicle this morning. Wackiest injury so far (the injury was minor - I think wounded pride and the sting of lemonade in the eye were the major factors).

mr. flea is writing his qualifying exams for the PhD. Started Wednesday. Has 45+ hours of questions, mostly open book. He'll be at work all day today and tomorrow, sigh. And it's too freaking hot to walk much of anyplace. I suspect we will give in to some videos. A Bug's Life is on deck right now.

my little weirdo

I am baking brownies and supplementing Casper's skimpy dinner as she sits on the stool watching me. I had only to get the mixer out and she said "cake!" How quickly they learn.

One of the supplementary items is a hard-boiled egg, which I give to her to try to open by herself. She tries for a bit and then bites it. I hear "crunch crunch crunch." (She has bitten the frozen, thawing stick of butter in its wrapper not 5 minutes earlier. Why do I keep giving things to her? You might well ask.)

I remove the egg and peel it for her, depositing the peels in a pile. She picks up more of the shell and eats it! I say, "You weirdo. Does that taste good?" She says, "Crunchy!" and smiles happily.

So, it probably won't hurt her to eat a couple of bits of eggshell, right? It was boiled and well-chewed...

Then she wants to lick the spoon I used to scrape out the bowl of melted chocolate. Melted unsweetened chocolate. I hand it over, figuring she will taste it and shudder. Nope, she licks the spoon clean.

What do they call it when people like to eat clay and other weird stuff?