Kids Say the Darndest Things

Claire's always had a pretty good vocabulary, but now she's really putting together sentences and expressing what she's thinking and feeling. Some stories:

"For ..."
I've been working on Claire to say she's sorry when she's done something wrong, but I'm trying to take it one step further and to say WHY she's sorry (ie "sorry for kicking Gavin in the head on accident", "sorry for throwing my food across the room", "sorry for smushing play-doh into the carpet" are all recent examples). She may not be able to enunciate the words fully or even really finish the sentence, but I think she's getting it. Well, the other day after doing the latest impish thing, Claire immediately said, "Sorry". Wanting her to understand why, I prompted her, "For ...?", and she looked at me solemnly and said "Five .....?".

"MY-dea"
One of the things we do at home is let Claire choose the next activity. I think she was learning about "ideas" at school because she kept exclaiming "I-dea!" before starting the next thing one morning. I asked her if Mommy could come up with an idea, and she said, "No! MY-dea!" (we're also going through a case of mine-itus)

"I happy now"
The terrible twos -- which I have recently learned is the terrible two YEARS, not the terrible two years OLD; apparently three is worse than two?! mon dieu -- has brought the onset of Claire's wild temper. She will throw a fit if you don't know what she's trying to say, she will throw a fit if she doesn't get what she wants right away, she will throw a fit if the sky is clear, the wind is blowing, or the day of the week ends in "y". A trick that our friends use with their daughter is the "whiny spot". Similar to the "naughty spot" (ie thinking time), if their daughter needs to whine, she can go to her whiny spot until she's ready to join them again that way no feelings are supressed or repressed. I used something similar with Claire where, when she was throwing a fit while we were playing, I asked her to remove herself from the situation and work out her anger, and then she could come back to play. To my surprise, she did just that. She stomped from the living room to the kitchen, stomped in place a few times and yelled nonsense, took a deep breath, and then came back to declare, "I happy now" before resuming playing. Wow! The only bittersweet part of this story is that every so often, Claire will come up after being quiet for a few moments to tell me she's happy now which leads me to believe that my baby girl was sad just moments before. :( I love that she's learning to express her emotions though, including times where she does tell me "Claire sad", and hope that she continues to share her feelings with me even as she gets older.

Gavin's not really saying the dardest things yet (cut him a break, he's 3 months old!), but what he doesn't say, he definitely makes up for in volume. He's cooing and babbling and will sometimes let out a super load "ah!" that startles both himself and me.