vocabu-wa huh??

CB is extremely creative. I don't think her mind ever stops. The first thing she says in the morning is something about the dream she had the night before, which have lately included lots of bubbles and dragons? And the last thing she says before she goes to bed is what she is going to dream about as soon as she falls asleep. In between she is always singing or dressing up or drawing, cooking, making something out of nothing, dancing, "reading", finding the deeper meaning in things... I don't know how she isn't exhausted.

One of her most amazing talents is her way with words. She rhymes like a pro, like a mini- Diva Eminem, and she can string words together that shouldn't be put together by a small child. For instance, a while having a conversation about whether or not her daddy liked kale she said, "Well, I will just question him about it when he arrives home from work this evening." WHAT?!

She has been talking non stop since she was 17 months old. I think I may have mentioned before that when she was 22 months old she was tested as having the vocabulary and comprehension of a four and a half year old, Lord help me. Even now, at almost age 4, her vocabulary is ridonkulous-- much better than mine, I think (clearly, because I use the word "ridonkulous"). 

But sometimes her creative brain takes over, as does her propensity for the sounds of other languages (Spanish, thanks to Dora and Dutch and Korean thanks to her daddy) and she ends up making up her own words for things, fully expecting us to know what they mean.

Woggly= a combination of wiggly and wobbly
Cribbled= a combination of scribbled and crumbled
PipUp= a sumersault
Habbalay= well, we still aren't exactly sure what that one means...

And then there are her mindbendingly observant thoughts:
"Mommy, lizards are NOT inventions"
"Houses can't jump"
"Remember 14 years ago when I was a pig and I went 'oink oink squeal squeal' and then they cut me up and ATE ME???" (what the....???)

And on and on and on. This is all in addition to the fact that she truly believes she is a princess and nearly every request you make of her will be met with some kind of "what would a princess do" response:
"Mommy, princesses don't eat that."
"Mommy, princesses don't go potty." (neither do astronauts, apparently) 
"Mommy, princesses don't lift up their dresses to go to the bathroom, someone does it for them."
"Mommy, princesses ALWAYS wear sparkly earrings so I need some too."
"Mommy, Germany princesses don't wear klompen. Only Dutch princesses wear klompen and I am a German princess because I was born in Germany. I need Germany princess shoes." (which is funny, because she is actually half Dutch, but whatever.)

In fact, she's so wrapped around this princess idea that when she comes to an obstacle, like a piece of paper on the floor in her walking path or a chair she needs to walk around, or perhaps a flight of 3 stairs, she will stop and wait, saying, "Who will saaaaaaaaaaaaaave me???" until someone comes to her rescue. And when you tell her she can, in fact, remove the ginormously heavy and cumbersome scrap of blanket fuzz from her sock, she will counter with a round of, "But I CAN'T. YOU have to do it. It is too HEAVY for me." complete with sad eyes and a stuck out bottom lip.

There is something about this child though, something so brilliant and special. She has this incredible spirit and ability to make everyone smile and she has the most sweet and empathetic heart and always wants to be sure that everyone is ok and if they aren't, she wants to fix it. I'm sure that in addition to those qualities, her creativity and humor are going to take her places.  I haven't figured out yet who she is going to be or where she will end up but I am so looking forward to finding out. Although, I'll fully admit to being more than a little bit terrified of the road that takes us there...