Some cute moments with Lennie of late:

For months now, M’s been trying to get Lennie to state her correct age. A few days ago, Lennie asked how old I was, and I told her. She immediately adopted my age as hers and now insists that she’s 29. One or twice, I’ve gotten her to say she’s two, but she’s usually pretty insistent that she’s pushing 30.

She’s also very curious about names, asking M and me pretty frequently what our names are. Today, she was asking me what some kitty’s name was. The other day, M was working with her on her last name, and Lennie refused to believe she was Lennie Houston. She’d giggle about it and say “noooo, I’m not Lennie Hue-hue.” She found it disproportionately funny when we’d tell her about her last name, and it was mighty cute.

She’s definitely a little jokester. Like many parents, we play the misname game with her partially for fun and partially to engage her critical thinking/review skills. So we’ll see a dog in a book and insist that it’s a kitty, or we’ll see something red and ask if it’s green, and she’ll say “noooo” with a coy grin. We were recently misnaming hair colors, and she assured me that she had green hair. This morning, she looked me in the eyes and told me I have brown eyes (though they’re blue). I think in this case, she was just mistaken and doesn’t really perceive eye color (I never could really see eye color when I was younger.)

Last week, I made meatloaf (more on that in a forthcoming entry). Later, Lennie was asking me for something I couldn’t understand. I finally figured out that “ruff ruff” was what she had remembered as the name for meatloaf. It’s amazing the things she’ll hear just one or two times and dredge back up later (sometimes much later).