Tot Talk Update

Mama: How about we play with some jigsaw puzzles?
Pepe: How about we drink milt-milt? I want to drink Poyyi's milt.

Mama: Maybe it will rain today.
Pepe: But maybe not.

"Maybe" and "How about" are certainly favourite words in Pepe's vocabulary at present! She also surprises us at times with lines such as the one I heard her say at bath time: "I am soaping my own bearself."

Mama: Would you like a dinosaur vitamin?
Pepe: I want so many.
Mama: But you can't eat so many vitamins in a day...
Papa: Do you know what will happen to you if you eat too many dinosaur vitamins?
Pepe: I will get sick.
(Obviously not the answer Papa was expecting!! :)

Pepe has been asking me to change her name in the recent days, and it's been pretty amusing. So far, she's rejected all of my suggestions--from Poppo to Lollo--and usually ends up deciding that "Pepe" is still best, except at times when she prefers to be called "Elmo" (unconcerned that it's a boy name), or "Toddler/Baby Elephant/Cat/Dog/Monkey", or "Rabbit", "Piglet" or "Roo"; those are also the times when mama becomes "Big Bird", "Momma Elephant" etc. and "Pooh" and "Kanga". Yes, mothers have to be many things to their children.

It can be really fun talking to Pepe now, and our conversations have become much longer and interesting since Baby Polly came along and I'm many times able only to talk to Pepe (as opposed to physically playing with her or reading to her) while attending to Polly or doing housework.



And while Pepe does disobey and test our patience at times, there have also been so many, many times when I've just felt immensely thankful to God, and appreciative of the sweet patience of the girl on days when there's so much to do at home! Pepe would often be happily occupied eating a snack, looking at books, and talking to me about the weather, how the sun needs time to dry up all the rain at the playground, how silly and small Polly is... and much of our conversation inspired by the stuff we've read together, providing allusions, pithy lines, plots, characters and themes. I also simply love laughing with her over her pronunciation boo-boos such as pronouncing "k" as "t" (so it's "Mama tum here" for "Mama come here"), "l" as "y" (so it's "Poyi" instead of "Polly", and "Hayo" instead of "Hello"), and a difficulty with pronouncing the "ng" at the end of some words (so it's "sing a son.")

A current favourite nursery rhyme of Pepe's:
"The man in the moon came down too soon
and asked his way to Norwich.
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
with supping pyum cold pyum porridge."