I yove you.

A couple of months ago, Arya started saying, "I love you." Her l-sound actually sounds more like a y- sound though, so when she says "I love you", it sounds like "I yove you." I love hearing her say, "I yove you, Mommy!" It just gets me! Recently, she has found that she yoves so many things though. I yove Elmo. I yove candy. I yove Blue's Clues. I yove Mika. I yove Yuca (Luca). I yove that. I yove her. I yove him. I yove...the list goes on and on. So, maybe she does yove everyone and maybe she does tell us all of the things she yoves every day...but I yove hearing Arya express herself and if she wants to say it all day long, that is fine with me!! I yove you, Arya!!

Imagining...

Arya has begun to develop quite and imagination and it is so fun to watch!! She loves to pretend. She is especially interested in cooking and loves making soup, chicken, eggs, "hangaburs" (hamburgers), and more for us. She got a play kitchen for Christmas and is having so much fun with all of her dishes. Grandma Carol even noticed today that she was carefully using her tiny play potholder to remove a pan from her play oven! How adorable is that?!

I have also noticed her playing while eating her real food at mealtimes. Yesterday she was eating cottage cheese. I was cleaning up the kitchen as she was having her snack. I listened as she started telling me what she had "found" in her cottage cheese. I actually jotted down part of the conversation because it was so funny and I didn't want to forget. Here is part of what I heard (with my comments in parentheses)...

Arya: Tiny frog. Walking, walking, on the road. (As she moved a big piece of cottage cheese along her high chair tray.)
Me: Oh, it is a frog? Are you going to eat the frog?
Arya: Nooo. (In her "Come on, Mom, that's silly!" tone.) No eat him.
(Long pause.)
Arya: Eat him!!! (Apparently she had changed her mind!)

Later, her little game continued and this was what I heard:
Arya: It's a doggie. I made it. This (is the) puppy tail. (She was showing me the "tail" made from cottage cheese at this point.)
Arya: Tail! Oh no! Arya broke it. I broke it. I broke a tail.
(Another pause...)
Arya: I eat it! Eat the doggie. I eat it!

Anyway, I hope you have been as entertained by Arya's imagining as I have been! Stay tuned for more.