Again! Again!

Ah, repetition.

It is the joy of a toddler's existence, and the test of a parent's patience.

I can tell that Maya takes a lot of pride in her ability to communicate effectively (most of the time) with words. She's pretty patient with us, even when she has to repeat "hambuss" over and over, while her dad and I slowly come to the understanding that she wants to play in her sandbox.

When she does get her point across, she often says "Yay!" and claps her hands, as if to say "Good job, you dumb parents! You figured it out."

Maya always wants confirmation when she identifies things, and she won't stop until she gets it. She'll bring her Weeble over and hold it up, declaring "Itsa egg. Itsa egg. Itsa eggitsaeggistaeggITSAEGG!" until one of us says "Yes! It's an egg." Then she smiles and tells us something else about the egg: that it's blue, for example. This, she can confirm for herself, for some reason: "It's bwue. Wight, it's bwue."

Since we've always quizzed her about the things she sees, asking about their color, their shape, the sound they make, now she's started quizzing us. "What tuhwuhZIS?" she asks me, holding up her crayon. I tell her it's blue. It's not that she doesn't know; she's just making sure I know.

She loves to say and do things over and over and over, just because she can. It's awesome to see her sense of personal accomplishment when she makes a request and we understand and comply. That's why Dad spends half the afternoon spinning the Weebles on the table ("Spinnit awownd?") and I spend half the evening drawing pictures ("Wet's dwah...puppies! Yay, puppies!").

She's got us well-trained.