Rowrie?

*Note: more info and photos re: our France trip soon, but I had to post this before I forget it.


Rowan's language is developing rapidly. She knows when to say please, thank you, Bon Appétit, Cheers, and many other niceties (though "excuse me" is always followed and preceded by lots and lots of giggling and usually some attempt at reproducing whichever sound she just needed to ask to be excused for.) She asks questions, some two or three words, and tells us all about things she's done or things she's seen. Every night, there's a play-by-play of the day, and during prayers she thanks God for things that are important to her, like Lucy's haircut which currently appears to be the most wonderful thing she must give thanks for.

The one thing she can't say is, "I don't know." For that, she developed her own word, "Rowrie." (Rhymes with "Cow Pee.") No clue where that one came from.

We look through a book, identifying objects on the page, in English or in French. When one comes that she doesn't know or has forgotten: "Rowrie?"

I ask her the color of objects in a room. She gets to the undefinable puce, beige or olive, and... "Rowrie?"

Planning for her second birthday dinner tomorrow, I ask her what she'd like to have. "Rowrie?" (Eventually it came out that she wanted sandwiches. Fish ones, but we had fish tonight, so we settled on chicken.)

Before bed, we started cleaning up her play area, our living room. She had taken every single book out of the basket, so as we put them back in, I encouraged her to count. She made it up through ten with no problem. Then came eleven and twelve, which needed a little help to come out correctly. She took the book from my hand, plopped it in the basket, and said just after I did, "Thirteen!"

I handed her one more book. She put it in the basket. I said, "which one is that, Honey?"

She looked at me and smiled.

"Rowrie-teen???"