Maggie has learned a new word! "No." It's pretty cute, actually. She repeats it twice and her little voice is so sweet. "no-no." She sort of has a y sound in there too so it sounds more like "n-yo n-yo". I say it's cute, because so far we don't really ask her questions about things where the answer needs to be yes. Or at least then we change tacks and avoid questions. "Maggie, do you want to brush your teeth?" "No-no." "No? Ok. Maggie, I'm going to brush my teeth. Come help me!" So far mostly we've had success with this switch-up-the-type-of-sentence-you-use tactic. As time goes on, I'm sure new tactics will need to be developed.
Just in general, I'm having to adjust to the fact that Maggie understands pretty much everything we say. It used to be that I would tell her what I was doing or tell her what we were going to do or tell her stories as we were walking or tell her what we were passing in the car, to get her used to voices and words and the idea that people converse with each other. And now. Now she responds to talk. She answers, or she makes a gesture, or she goes and does something. If she doesn't respond, it's because she's chosen not to; not because she doesn't understand. Time to be careful, parents! (Case in point: Yesterday walking through the park after church, I leaned over to Bill and said "Look at that lady's shoes!" As we were walking past her and her husband, Maggie repeated a couple of times "shoes shoes shoes shoes.")
So no longer will I be referring to that one girl at Gymboree as the funny looking girl. No more saying before a visit, "I don't think he likes kids, does he?" No conversations at the table about how gross broccoli is while trying to make Maggie eat it. Usher in the new era of secret parent language: spelling.