Great Communicators

Josephine and Madeleine are both working on their communication skills. Madeleine is navigating the sometimes competing forces of politeness and respect versus getting what she'd like. On Tuesday, Madeleine joined me and two friends for lunch. Madeleine was thrilled to be out - skipping, holding my hand, and beaming. It was a beautiful day, so we sat outside and enjoyed tacos and the sunshine. During a lull in the conversation, Madeleine asked if perhaps we'd noticed the bakery just inside and wondered aloud if we might all enjoy a cookie after lunch. After a brief discussion, we all decided that we would indeed enjoy a cookie and stopped at the bakery on our way out. Polite direct requests are also appreciated, but I was impressed by how Madeleine worked her wishes into the general conversation and made sure that everyone was included in the benefit (i.e. cookie).

Josephine's communication skills are also evolving and are much more rudimentary, not to mention loud. At home, Josephine may throw her head back dramatically and yell if you happen to say, walk away from a piece of buttered toast she was planning on eating. She'll also let you know if she'd rather that you didn't leave the room right now, thank you. Reading this, I realize how Josephine's preferences are strongly focussed on people and food. She will still happily swap one toy for another (note to Madeleine: this will end shortly), but is much more opinionated about edibles and those she loves. At school, she's prone to crawling over to a teacher and then laying her head on the ground and crying. I was sitting with her earlier this week when she crawled over to where Ms. Beverly was sitting and did this. Ms. Beverly looked at her calmly and said, "Oh Josie, are you ready for lunch now?". Indeed she was as Josephine immediately sat up and stopped crying. Josephine seemed to know that it was Ms. Beverly rather than me who controlled the coveted plate of food.

Finally, Madeleine and Josephine were happy to meet baby Sally this week. Sally's parents are Michael's old friend Chuck and his wife Kim. Sally is just two months younger than Josephine, but does outweigh her a bit. On this initial visit, as a crawler, Josephine had a locomotive advantage, but this will surely expire before our next visit. In any case, Sally seems like a sweet, funny girl who we look forward to seeing more.