From the time Juliet was a toddler she’s always been keenly observant. Even when you don’t think she’s listening and understanding, she is. And when she doesn’t understand what’s going on, she’ll ask: What are you talking about?
When my daughter doesn’t want Juliet to know what we’re talking about, she uses the age-old trick of spelling a few keys words, for example:
Have you decided on a G-I-F-T for her B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y?
Juliet recently showed me she understands that spelling can be useful. I was babysitting for her and her little sister so my daughter and son-in-law could attend a school event. We’d been out to dinner and I was taking the girls home. Lately Amelia has been going through a very clingy period. She cries when my daughter leaves the house to go shopping. We were all wondering how two-year old Amelia would react when her parents said goodbye.
We all walked back to the car and my daughter put Amelia in her car seat next to her big sister, Juliet. We all held our breath as Mama strapped Amelia into her car seat. Then she closed the door and waved goodbye to the girls as we drove away.Trying to distract Amelia, I said enthusiastically: We’re going to have so much fun playing hide and seek when we get home. Amelia smiled and waved to her parents.
When they were out of sight, Juliet asked me:
Baba, how do you spell “cry?”
I told her, and then she said: Amelia didn’t even C-R-Y!
I thought that was soooo C-U-T-E!
