I have a 16 month old daughter Julia.  She doesn’t like to go to bed.  The other night, my wife Emily was trying to put her to bed.  We have tried to teach Julia a little baby sign language, and it has really helped her to communicate early with us, so you get a window into the mind of a pre-toddler.

 On her way to bed, Julia signed for shoes.  She tapped her little fists together and said “shoo, shoo.”  (My daughter isn’t a year and a half old and she has a shoe fetish)  Emily looked to see if there were shoes in view, or maybe in the bed… “No, you don’t need any shoes, it’s time for bed”  A moment later Julia brought her hand to her mouth “Fooh, fooh.” 

“No, you don’t need any food, you just need to go to bed.”

“Gawh-djee, Gawh-djee.”  With her finger tapping her lips.  (That is how Julia says, and signs, water)

 ”No, you just need to go to sleep”

Julia lied there thinking for a moment….

“Shour, Shour!”  Her little hand was pumping the air like a shower head.  Emily couldn’t help but laugh.

 She was puling out every excuse she could think of to try to get out of bed!  It’s so funny that at that age she will try all of that.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

She will usually go to sleep for me pretty well.  She doesn’t try all those tricks on me–I guess I’m just not sympathetic enough.  Tonight I was putting her to bed and she was having a really hard time.  She was tired, she could barely keep her eyes open, but she would just lie there barely awake.  After 20 minutes of trying to sneak out quietly, I finally decided to just leave.  Sometimes she will cry for a moment, then fall asleep–but, not this time.  I went back in after a few minutes, and still couldn’t get her calm.  Finally the cavalry came in.  Emily came in after me and took over.  Julia was more than willing to go to Mom. (For some reason, dad’s just aren’t as good) 

As I left the room, I heard Julia saying “Fooh, fooh”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Mark my Words, Pseudo Semantics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.