Leina does not stop talking.
All day long, she chatters to me. What she’s doing, what she’s done, what she’d like to do. Just a continuous stream of thought pours from her little baby mouth. It’s gotten to the point that even strangers comment on what a talker she is as we wheel around through the store. The cutest part is that she likes you to repeat what she says. It’s like she wants to make sure she’s using the right words and you understand her.
She’ll say something like, “take Pooh to store. Buy donuts!”
And then she’ll stand there at look at you, expectantly. “Are you going to go to the store with Pooh and buy donuts?” I’ll respond.
‘Yeah!” and off she goes to strap Pooh into the toy stoller and push into the bathroom where said donuts are purchased.
My favorite is when she retells something that has happened. Her favorite story right now involves a mouse. Yes, our horrid little cats have started bring mice into the house and, of course, they are still alive. So we’ll be playing in the living room when suddenly the cats will tear by, Artie will dive off the sofa, and a huge ruckus will occur. Leina, of course, gets right into the thick of things and I’ve twice found my very pregnant self on hands and knees with a towel trying to capture some poor terrified field mouse. This would be hard enough being massively preggers but add to it two cats, a large dog, and a small inquisitive child and it’s hilarious.
The latest mouse ran under the sofa and hid quite effectively. It probably could have survived but it tried to scoot out and Artie chomped it dead. For the last few days, Leina has been retelling our latest mouse chase. Her narrative goes something like this.
“Fatty chase mouse.” (Leina has no idea that Fatty cat’s real name is Blitz. To her, she’s always been fatty.)
“Did fatty chase the mouse?”
“Yeah, mouse scared.”
“Was the mouse scared?”
“Yeah, mouse hide under sofa.”
“Did the mouse hide under the sofa?”
“Yeah, mommy caugh mouse. Mouse outside.”
“Did mommy put the mouse outside?”
“Yeah, in bushes. Leina outside?”
“No, honey, no outside. It’s raining.”
“Mouse scared.”
Technically, mouse was dead but I’m just not ready to try and explain dead to my 20 month old daughter just now. And so, I merely tell her that Artie “scared” the mouse instead of the truth that he crushed it to death in his vicious pitbull jaws. What a good boy.
Perhaps it’s all the books we read but Leina loves to tell a good story to just about anyone who’s willing to repeat it back to her. She’ll even “read” her books to her stuffed animals and if I though Kevin maligned the plot line, I hadn’t yet heard Leina’s version of the printed word. She’s a real chip off the old man’s block. That’s for sure.