The kid’s at an age when she’s able to express some creativity with words and play and concepts. Now we get a much better glimpse of how her brain works.

A recent example of Allie playing with words: The other day she was watching a video clip of Pocahontas singing “Colors of the Wind” on her iPad, and I said, “That’s Pocahontas.”
“Pocahontas?” she repeated. “That’s Pocahontas.” Then her up-to-something grin appeared and she stuck out her index finger, pointed to the screen, then jabbed it at Pocahontas and said, “Poke!” Pleased with her joke, she looked up at me and giggled.
The joke’s been done before, but when she did it, it’s cuter than when guys used to say, “I’ll poke yer hontas. Hur hur hur.”

Allie’s imagination and creativity are also showing in physical play. Earlier this evening she crawled rapidly around in the living room on all fours, giggling. I asked if she were a doggy, and she said no, she’s a mau-mau (cat). Then she laid down on her side, and swung her upper leg in a wide arc from left to right in the air, over and over. I didn’t know what she was doing, but before I could ask, she looked at me and explained, “That’s my tail.”
“What?”
“That’s my tail.”
That’s one even I never thought of doing when I was her age and pretended all the time that I was a cat.

I wrap up Allie’s bedtime routine with a song and dance, just the two of us, letting Allie pick the song she wants sung to her. Allie’s gone from specific song requests (“Wheels on Bus!”) to made up songs (“Allie Bells Song!” “Elephant Song!”) to now, for the past week, made up words. Last night’s song request was “Alleyo.” The night before that it was something like “Humick.” Tonight, it was “I want peeyow song.” I know she’s trying to throw me off so I just confirm the “word” with her, she says, “Yeah!” with a mischievous smile, I don’t bat an eye, tell her okay, & make it up as I go. Haven’t heard a complaint yet. Some friends have done the same thing with their kids, and one suggested that I make up a song that spells her name and has her address in it, so it’ll help her memorize these things. I think that’s a good idea and will try to adopt it and come up with something.

Since Allie likes to challenge me, I figure that now’s a good time to challenge her, too. Instead of asking her the usual easy yes/no questions (“Did you hear that?”) or questions with specific answers (“Who’s holding Allie in that photo?”), it’ll now go something like this…
Allie: Allie’s foot smells!
Me: It smells? Does it smell good or bad?
Allie: It smells good.
Me: What does it smell like?
Allie: Smells like…apples.

Or, earlier this evening as I was putting lotion on her after her bath…
Me: *grabbing and hugging her* MY Allie. Is Allie MY Allie, or dada’s Allie?
Allie: Allie’s dada’s Allie, and mama’s Allie.

She’s always been very fair and PC. 🙂

(As an aside, she’s now dropping the 3rd person in at least half her speech. She now says “I don’t like that,” “That’s mine,” “I wanna watch mama make something,” etc.)