Yesterday when we got home after work, I saw that Allie had two little scratches on her cheek. Jayne said that she’d accidentally scratched Allie while she was taking off Allie’s hat, and talked about how heart-breaking it was that Allie had just stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief, then her eyes started welling up with tears. This morning, Jayne brought her teenage daughter Alyssa along to spend part of the morning with Allie (she ADORES Allie and Allie actually would prefer her to Jayne, which would hurt Jayne’s feelings, haha), and told Alyssa the story about the scratch on Allie’s cheek. I didn’t think Allie was paying attention, but she started making a motion against her cheek as if she were scratching it with her nail, then pouted, whimpered, pointed to her cheek and said, “Boo-boo.” This little girl is going to learn to rat people out with her reenactments. And she doesn’t forget things, either. Months ago, she got a scrape on her knee, which is how she started saying the word “boo-boo.” She’d point out her boo-boo, usually when her knees are exposed such as when her diaper’s being changed, and ask that the person she shows it to kiss it all better for her.

Speaking of kissing non-existent boo-boos… I’ve been trying to get Allie to take single bites from larger chunks of food instead of stuffing the entire item into her mouth as she likes to do. Last weekend, I handed her a baby carrot (steamed soft) and stopped her from stuffing it, telling her “One bite, one bite” and holding her hand as she brings the food to her mouth. After a few times of interfering, she got it and would take a bite and a second consecutive bite immediately after. Oh, well, at least the item was being broken up before it ends up in her mouth. She was so eagerly eating her carrots this way that she ended up biting her finger, hard. She cried from the pain, and I kissed her finger for her. And then for dessert, she did it again with the strawberry spears she was eating. I felt bad that I made her hold food and bite down on it and because of that she ended up biting herself twice, but it was also funny. Nevertheless, I kissed her finger for her again. After that, Allie would fake biting her finger (of both hands), then whimper while offering me that finger to kiss. Sometimes the finger doesn’t even touch her teeth. She practically points to the inside of her open mouth and then would pull the finger out with her bottom lip flipped out in a pouty smile, and whimper as she aims the “injured” finger at me to kiss, and then do the same for the finger of the other hand, and then back and forth. I wonder if playing along gives the message that I can be fooled. Oh, well…it’s cute.