Bagoons, Ahmools and the Best Magic Trick Ever

M has learned the best new magic trick! Twice in the last week, we have put her in her crib, and after a few minutes of chatter, she's fallen asleep all by herself.

I can almost hear you (my imaginary readers) all thinking, "yeah, so? Doesn't every single person on this planet do that?" And yes, most people do fall asleep by themselves. But M doesn't. She is the Child that Hates Sleep. Since she was about a week old, we've had to rock, coo, sing, cajole, bounce, trick and drug her to sleep. (ok, I was kidding about the drugging.) So the fact that she's gone down all by herself is nothing short of miraculous. I hope it's the start of a trend.

She's also going through another vocabulary growth spurt. Lately, she picks random words out of our conversations, and we'll hear her in the background repeating them over and over. She particularly loves exclamations, so we hear a lot of "oh, boy!" and "fook!" (before you get all concerned and call child protective services, I should state that "fook" is her approximation of "frook," which is my stand-in for the other f word).

M's also changing the way she says some words she acquired long ago. For instance, she used to say "boon!" for ballon, then went through a phase of "blaloon," and has now arrived at "bagoon." Who knows why? I think she just likes to keep us guessing as to what she might be saying.

My new favorite of M's new phrases is the "mahhhmmy, airaaahooo?" I now hear every morning (for those unfamiliar with the toddler dialect, that's "Mommy, where are you?") It just tickles me that she wakes up with my name on her lips. I also love that she'll spend some time in the evening reviewing her day. When we went to the zoo last week, we heard her in her crib that night listing the "Ahmools" she saw. Yesterday, we spent some time at the indoor playground nearby, and the car ride back was an endless stream of "Friend. Ahndew (Andrew, her friend). Fuuuuun."

Sadly, my total abuse of the television in the last few weeks is all too apparent in this latest round of vocab-building. Her new words include "Ah Street" (Sesame Street), "Ih burd" (big bird"), "Monkey Dorge" (Curious George), "Ahnee" (Ernie), "Cookie," and "igans" (Backyardigans, with which she is now re-obsessed, despite my feminist qualms). I may have liked it better when she couldn't tattle to daddy about what we did all day. If she ever learns to say "Goldfish" or "chocolate," I'm totally screwed.