Thursday, September 14, 2006

It's the verbal AND non-verbal cues they pick up, my friend

Ella has picked up on quite a few things in her 2 3/4 years. Some good. Some not so good. I tend to forget that she not only mimics what you say but also what you do and the manner in which you do it. This is good when she's on the phone and she tells the person that she's talking to "Love you, miss you, bye." This is her closing line to virtually everyone she talks to on the phone. It's very sweet. However, I've noticed her picking up on the non-verbal things Aron and I do, too. This is not always good. She was trying to put together a toy the other day while I was making dinner. I heard her over with her toys banging them around and going "RRRRRR. RRRRRR." I turned around and was like what is she doing? She started to bang her toy on the table and said "RRRRRR...can't do it...RRRRR...can't do it, Mommy" and proceeded to throw her toy on the floor. I was dumbfounded--where did she pick up such Neanderthal behavior? Certainly, not from moi. I couldn't figure out where she learned this until I watched my husband trying to fix something around the house. I watched him go "RRRRRR....RRRRR.... this sucks. Piece of crap" and toss what he was trying to fix on the floor.

Not that I'm completely innocent in the non-verbal cues department. Ella's picked up a few habits from me as well. Like when I get frustrated with Aron when he's nagging at me to do something (like he always is but I'll not go into that now) and I tell him "YES, I'll do" whatever and while I say YES I bulge my eyes out and tilt my head to clearly indicate that I'm not enjoying his nagging but will do whatever to get him to stop talking. Yeah, she's picked up on that and I've been on the receiving end of that.

As always, SIGH.

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