Thursday, September 27, 2012

Abby, the Human Sponge

I comment all the time about how Abby likes to repeat the things that we say. Quite often, she will find a particular phrase attractive and repeat it at first hearing, like a little parrot. And later, I am not surprised to hear her say it again, and again.

However, especially lately, she's managing to say things that I don't ever remember teaching her. I guess she picked them up from somewhere- random conversations between Tom and me? television programs that we've watched in her presence?- but I don't think she picked them up from me directly. Given that she's with me all day long, every day, and goes to no more than one play date a week (at which I am always present), there aren't a whole lot of other places or people that she could be picking things up from. But apparently, it doesn't take much exposure or encouragement for her to learn new things now.

Just the other day she pointed to my phone and said, "Mommy mobile phone." She actually said it a few times, and it took me until the third or fourth time that I heard it to figure out that the middle word was mobile. Because I've never called it that. It's an appropriate term for it, sure. But usually I just call it a phone, or sometimes, a cell phone. Very curious.

Even curiouser: while she definitely learned from me how to say "Bless you," when I or someone else sneezes, that's exactly how I say it: "Bless you." So, imagine my surprise when I heard her say to me one day, "God bless you!" Again, not an unusual phrase in and of itself, and one that many people use. But not me, or Tom. We use the "short" version.

During dinnertime last night, Abby enjoyed her very first soft taco. She was so pleased with it, and with herself, for eating it like a "big girl," that she smiled and said between bites, "Licking Abby lips!" Can't say I've ever used that phrase around her. But who knows? Maybe I have and I've forgotten. With the amount of sleep I've been getting for the past year or so, my short-term memory isn't the greatest.

But the real kicker was just this morning, when I heard Abby chanting, "Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear." Um, I know I've never said that in front of her. No particular reason why not- I just haven't had any incentive to recite it since my last campfire sing in Girl Scouts, long ago.

Tom thinks we can attribute that last one to Granda. I tend to agree. Guess I'll have to ask him what else he's been whispering in my daughter's ear when I wasn't looking. ;)