Aggle, Flaggle, Klabble No More

We continue to be amazed by the things that come out of our kids' mouths. They went from simple words and phrases ("Daddy, up!") to entire sentences and expressions of emotion, all in the matter of a few months. I feel like I've gone from taking care of babies, to spending my days with two expressive little people, telling me what they think, how they feel and what they want. The transformation is really incredible.

Lucie has taken off speaking in full sentences and correctly using tricky words. Her latest is the word "actually". When asked what she wanted to eat this morning she first requested yogurt, and then corrected herself with "Actually, I like waffles." I was speechless — how did she learn that one? Well, actually, I shouldn't appear so stunned since she hears that word coming from her sometimes indecisive mother's mouth many times a day. But the fact that she used it correctly and didn't try it out in the wrong context first was what really made me gawk.

As if I need more reason to believe she's listening closely, here are some other recent quotes:
"I need to organize my shirt drawer!" (when putting away clean clothes)
"Ryan, I have a question for you!" (a question never followed, but you could tell she wanted to know something from Ryan)
"I'm thinking about it." (when asked what foods she likes).

My very favorite quote of the week is when she declared, "I love this part!" when the dinosaurs started singing on Elmo's World.

Ryan has a ton to say as well. Sometimes his pronunciation is a little different, but we usually figure it out after a few minutes of explanation. One of my favorite Ryan quotes is "Knuffle, Mommy" &mdash his personal attempt at "I love you, Mommy". This came from a well-read book, Knuffle Bunny, about a baby who goes from gibberish (aggle! flaggle!) to speaking words when her dad leaves her beloved bunny at the laundromat. Ryan seemed to catch on that "knuffle" sounded like "love you" (maybe the reason why the bunny was named that in the book?) Thanks to Ryan-speak, now all four of us say "Knuffle!" to each other at nighttime instead of the usual "I love you". It's the best way to end the day.