Sometime over the course of the past couple of months, Emily has yet again reached a new level of communication skills. Gone are the days of caveman sentence structures (“That Daddy bike”) and third-person demands (“Emily want some!”). There is a bit more fluidity to her prose and her conversations are now peppered with colorful and fun little additions. True, she still says “What’s this one?” instead of “Who’s this?” and an elephant is still an ephelant, but definite strides are being made. If you don’t speak with her everyday, you might not appreciate these huge leaps, but I must stress that each of the following examples absolutely blew my mind when I heard them.

• We arrived at school the other day and I picked Emily up out of the basket on the front of the bike and placed her on the sidewalk. She took two steps, turned around and said, “Thank you for the ride, daddy”. I had never heard her say anything like that before.
• I asked Emily what that noise was that we had just heard outside and she replied, “Maybe it’s a parrot.”
• Emily’s consistent and correct use of gerunds and indefinite articles never ceases to amaze me. “Daddy, what’s the dog doing?”
• We were riding the elevator this morning when the topic of the weather came up. Emily asked where the umbrella was. I told her it was at home. This prompted the following informational tidbit: “I have an umbrella. Mommy has an umbrella, too. Not two umbrellas. Just one.”
• I went into the kitchen to get myself a drink. When I came back, Emily inquired, “You have some juice, daddy?”. I said yes. She then astutely pointed out, “I have some juice, too. We both have juice!”.
• We walked through the Old Man Square today and Emily climbed up on the bench next to the statue (of the old man sitting down). She gave him a big hug from behind and then proceeded to point out all of his best features. “Here’s his nose. Here’s his ear. He has one, two eyes. He has a beard (pronounced “BEE-word”). And lips.” Then she looked down and affirmed, “I can’t see his bottom”.
• Emily has firmly grasped the concept of the past tense, though she still comes out with corkers like, “There’s a cat outside. I sawed it!”.
• I asked Emily if she was ready to go to bed this evening and she looked around the living and said, “I think we need to tidy up first”.

Emily will gladly sing along with almost any song but it’s rare that she’ll sing on command all on her own. That’s why I’m particularly glad I had my camera at hand the other day to capture this: