Leina woke up from her nap yesterday and settled into the rocking chair with Elmo and a book. It’s this lift the flap farm animal book that she loves and she spent the next few minutes opening flaps and showing Elmo all the animals.

She reached the page all about shapes and started naming them. Circle, triangle, square. I consider these the “primary” shapes – sort of like red, blue, and yellow. You know, the basics. She then lifted up the picture of the watermellon and looked inside. She thought a moment and then said….

“Oval.”

I was over-joyed! An oval! This was big stuff! I gave her a big hug and beamed at her while she sat, watching me.

“Mommy,” Leina began thoughfully, “duckies pull.”

She sat there, her thought voiced, and watched me with her big blue eyes.

“Ummmm,” I began and looked down at her book. I didn’t see any ducks or pulling going on so I responded with the answer most favored by mothers of toddlers. “Uh huh, sweetie.”

Leina was unimpressed. She tried again. “No mommy, duckies pull oval….. silly duckies.” I swear she let out a ruefull chuckle and shook her head after this comment and proceeded to flip to a new page. I was still a step or two behind my small daughter and then the clouds parted and it hit me. In one of her Baby Einstein videos about shapes, two duckies pull on a circle to make it an oval. Yes, that’s right, an oval. I was stunned.

As she continued to rock and baby talk to Elmo, I leaned in close and whispered, “honey… you had me at oval.”