Emma Says...

At twenty-one months of age, my daughter Emma now has several expressions and short sentences that she uses with great frequency. The first thing that she says quite a bit is "Mine." The meaning of this would seem to be quite obvious, but it can vary subtly depending on the context in which it is used. Obviously, if she is looking at something and says "mine," she wants whatever it is. However, sometimes she just starts saying "mine" with nothing around. In this case she usually wants her pacifier. We are planning on removing the pacifiers completely in a week or so. Hopefully that doesn't go too badly.

Another thing that Emma likes to say now is "I want..." What she wants can vary quite a bit. It can be "I want cracker," which she said repeatedly last Sunday morning. She did not stop until she got a graham cracker for a snack. She often fills in other foods in this sentence when she is hungry. She also says "I want Mommy" or "I want Daddy." Usually she wants the parent who is not currently holding her or with her.

A third expression that Emma says with some degree of frequency is "Oh no!" She says this when things fall on the floor, or when she drops food on the floor from the dinner table. She also likes to say "oh no" when she sees something covered with snow, such as the car when we go out to go to day care. She also hates having snow on her shoes, or anyone else's shoes. So she will say "oh no" if there is snow on my shows when I come inside. She will then try to brush the snow off. She did this while we were walking around the grocery store this evening, much to the amusement of others.

It has been really interesting seeing how Emma has begun to put words together into sentences. I just continue to be amazed at how much her vocabulary has grown in recent months.