What 'Chou Talking About??

Marielle and I are communicating a lot more with each other these days. I no longer have to repeat all phrases at least twice as communication with my daughter. Now my questions are answered with "yeah" or "no!". Even though we are making great strides, we still have a lot of gaps. Like yesterday when I walked in the bathroom and found my liquid foundation all over the tile floor. I called Marielle in and pointed at the ground and asked her what happened. She did her best to explain. I didn't understand a single word she said but she was definitely trying to tell me something. She jabbered on and on, using hand gestures and voice inflection. Although I'll never really know her true plea of innocence, I think the gist was "things just got a little out of control mom, before I knew it that pink stuff was everywhere!"

Later in the afternoon we went to the mall. Living in Houston, we can't just go to the park in the summer, so we hit up the playplace at our mall. But seeing it was four o'clock that place was crawling with kids, most of them way taller than height requirement, and leaping off tall bridges, trucks and waterfalls. Poor Marielle didn't stand a chance. She played for about 20 minutes and then sought safety by sitting with mom on the bench. I wasn't ready to head home yet, so we went off in search of other mall adventures. I let her walk at her own pace and she wandered in and out of stores. She loved the computers at Build a Bear and the Pet Store seemed like a regular zoo with birds, bunnies and puppies just a window pane away. (The funniest part was Marielle wagging her finger and telling the puppies "No, no!" when they nipped and crawled all over each other.) After a nice afternoon of air conditioned playing, we headed back to our car. On the way there Marielle saw a Backyard Jungle Gym on display. I knew it was trouble the moment she yelled "park!" and started running. I caught up to her hanging on the fence next to the sign "Display Only -- No Climbing!" We sat down and I tried to explain to her that this was a park where children don't play (I was too tired to try and drag her away at this point). As I continued to explain the unimaginable to a toddler, I could see Marielle was having the same experience I had had this morning with the liquid foundation mess. She didn't understand a word I said, but the gist was "you ain't playing here baby!" I saw some colorful brochures and Marielle took one home with us as a very distant second to actually playing at the "park." And so mom and daughter carry on. Not really understanding each other, but nodding and smiling a lot and looking forward to the day when Marielle can talk.