Possessive Much?

This morning I decided to count the number of words and phrases that Norah uses on a regular basis. I know, weird. If I don’t think of activities like that in the morning my poor little brain has real trouble waking up. I end up a walking zombie until about an hour after I have my coffee. Anyway, I counted no less than 85 words and phrases that she uses regularly. I thought it was closer to 30 or 40 but as I got going, I just kept thinking of more and more things she says. I mean, she knows 10 words for items of clothing alone (socks, shoes, boots, pants, shirt, hat, mittens, gloves, tights, jacket). And yes, she knows the difference between mittens and gloves. That’s what we get for living at nearly 9,000 feet!

Aside from the sheer magnitude of words that she’s picked up, she’s also putting them together in two word phrases. Just tonight I told her we were going to brush her teeth, I said, "Ask Daddy if he can help you please." She looked at Mark and said, "Hep peese." Her favorite phrases currently have to do with what belongs to whom (according to my grammar check, it’s definitely whom). She points to our coat rack and identifies “Mama’s jacket”, “Daddy’s gloves” etc. She calls herself No-nah and will often point to her belongings and say, “Nonah’s shoes”, “Nonah’s necklace” etc. When she wants you to give her something, she’ll identify it, “Mama’s necklace” then point to herself and ask, “Nonah’s necklace?” She does this a lot at dinner when she wants to try our food.

My favorite recent development has been that Norah is learning WHO belongs to whom. At small group last week she ran up to our friends Ashley and Mark (whose daughter’s name is Ellie) and said, “Eh-yee mama!”, “Eh-yee Daddy!” Then she ran around the room identifying who were the daddy and mommy of which kid, including “Nonah’s” Daddy & Mommy.

Yesterday my mom was putting Norah in the car seat. She patted my mom on the arm and said, “Nonah’s ma-maw.” If that doesn’t warm a grammie’s heart, I don’t know what will.