So what’s up with these shoes?

Maybe it’s the age, but Sophie seems to be growing (mentally at least) by leaps and bounds. It’s not just that she’s always asking, “What’s this?” or even using full sentences. It’s getting to the point where you can start to really tell that her little mind is working – thinking about something, and figuring out a way to articulate it.

I’m not child development expert, so it’s tough for me to give a specific example – a lot of what she does could be chalked up to parroting phrases that we use or (horrors!) she sees on TV or hears from other adults. Luckily, she hasn’t learned too much from Caillou, since she doesn’t ask if we can play “curling” or where her toque is.

Now I have an instance where I have a great example, or in the words of Sophie, “There it is!”

Last weekend we were trying to get out of the house, which is usually a comedy of errors, screaming, tantrums, and general mayhem. We don’t consider it a true departure until both kdis have cried at least once.

We needed to get Sophie’s shoes on her feet – we usually give up on trying to get socks on her, since she always battles with us (rule #7 of parenting, Pick Your Battles). So we started looking in the usualy places: in the pile of shoes near the front door, in the living room, in the playroom, in her bedroom…no shoes. Check Maggie’s room, our bedroom, the spare bedroom, the office. RUn back down to the playroom again. Check the living room again. Hmm, maybe they’re in the playroom. Nope, maybe in the bedroom.

After about ten minutes of this (with Sophie accompanying one of us most of the way), Sophie finally had the true answer, “Maybe they’re hiding!” OK, so it’s not Voltaire, but she did made a joke, and it’s all her. We never talk about things hiding on us (people, yes).

I know some PhD can come up with some complicated explanation of what part of the brain was used, blah blah blah.

All I know is that Sophie made a funny.