toddler talk

Madilyn is a little chatterbox lately so I wanted to write down some of my favorite phrases she says:

• all fall down! She got this from Ring Around the Rosies, which she ends by singing "ashen, ashen, all fall down." Now she uses it every time she falls, someone else falls, or something is dropped on the ground. Most of the time it is said with some bewilderment in her voice, like she can't believe she or the object fell.
  
• where aaaare you? This was her first word combination, which came from playing peek-a-boo. Now she says it when she is looking for me (Mommy, where aaaare you?), a toy (Ball, where aaaare you?), or when she wants me to look for her (Madilyn, where aaaare you?). When she finds what she's looking for she always exclaims, "I found 'em!"
  
• uh oh, dirty! keep up! Madilyn has become very conscious of dirtiness. However, this hasn't helped her make less messes, especially when she eats. Her goopy hands get junk all over her drink cup, and sometimes I forget to wash off the cup when I wash her and her tray. She usually makes me clean off her cup before she'll drink out of it again, but the other day I couldn't because I was feeding Abby. Instead of getting her hands dirty, she held the very top of the cup with the tips of her fingers. Incidentally, when something is clean she'll say "all clean," it's only when she wants something cleaned up that "clean" becomes "keep."
  
• help pees. Madilyn has a very low tolerance for frustration, especially when she's tired. In order to avoid many tantrums, I've been working on having her ask for help rather than get angry and scream. When she's having a hard time doing something and starts to get frustrated I remind her to ask for help if she needs it. This has worked remarkably well in calming her down or avoiding frustration in the first place. The only problem I'm having is that I don't always know what she needs help with. I'll hear her calling for help and go ask what she needs, and she'll sweetly say she needs help. It takes some detective work to find out what she wants me to do to help her.
  
• one canny! pees! Madilyn is very interested in numbers lately and can count to 13 on her own, but she doesn't understand the concept of numbers being an amount. We count hands and fingers and other such things to help her understand, but she doesn't really get it (not that I expect her to). Lately she's been wanting candy all the time, so to stop a very loud tantrum I told her she could have just one candy, and emphasized the amount by holding up one finger. She calmed down enough to eat her candy, then started begging for another, but this time (and every time since) she used my method of "just one." She holds up her little pointer finger and begs for just "one canny," over and over again. Also, now that she's learned to say please (pees) she thinks that it truly is a magic word and thinks that she will automatically get anything she asks for as long as she says "please."
  
• mmmm nummy gooood (oo like in boo). delicious. Obviously this usually said in the context of eating, but quite often Madilyn thinks it's really funny to pretend to eat a non-food item or a picture in a book and tell us how delicious it tastes.
  
• gracious! Apparently I say "goodness" and "goodness gracious" fairly often because Madilyn says them all the time, only she drops the "goodness" from "goodness gracious." The most common situation for her to say "goodness" or "gracious" is when we're driving in the car and Abby starts crying and I can't do anything to calm her down.
  
• my's. This is Madilyn's version of "mine." A month or two ago she really got into declaring what was Madilyn's and what was Mommy's, especially when it came to food. Within the last week or so she has been much more adamant about what is hers. If I try to move a toy that she's not done with, she lets me hear about it.
  
• stop it! My least favorite. Usually said when I'm trying to wash Madilyn's face or do some other mean mom chore.
• I love it!! My very favorite. As you can imagine, Madilyn says this when she really likes something.