Some New Lucie-isms

Lucie has a way with words. She soaks up phrases and vocabulary, bringing them up later in her play. And with this facility for language comes a vivid imagination. Many of our dinners are spent listening to Lucie as she regales us with detailed and funny imaginary tales.

Recently she's been adding different voices to her stories for dramatic effect. Coincidentally, a few of the books we've picked up lately have had story lines where a mysterious voice calls from out of nowhere. Lucie thinks this is pretty funny, and sometimes scary, especially when Chris uses a deep, ominous voice while reading. She'll now do the same in her play. I'll hear her narrating a tale to stuffed animals and suddenly she'll switch to low, gruff tones to declare, "...and then a voice said, HELLO DOWN THERE!"

Lucie has had a bit of a cold lately, and is doing her best to fight off a sometimes stuffy/sometimes runny nose and hacking cough. At one of her low moments yesterday, she asked to skip lunch and go straight to bed for a nap instead. As she climbed up the stairs, I reminded her to take off her shoes. "But, Mommy" she said with a sniffle, "I really want to take off my nose."

Along with several imaginary friends, Lucie has created an imaginary land. This land is called Lucieland. To locate Lucieland, you need to drive just a little bit past Legoland. There you'll find a magical place where they only speak Lucie language. Lucie language is unlike any language I've ever heard. It's a combination of hand signals and noises, everything from tongue clicks to made-up words and grunts.

Though it's taking us a while to learn the native tongue, we're lucky to have an in-house translator to help us out on our first visit. I can't wait to go. Apparently in Lucieland there's an entire city devoted to ice cream. I wonder if they are accepting new residents?