"Mama"

Allie is becoming a chatterbox!

Her favorite things to say lately are "there she is!" (after she's been hiding),

flag, rainbow, all the shapes but her favorite is octagon,

and a new favorite - yellow!

All the seseme street monsters have clear identfiable names.

I am very jealous of Elmo.

Allie says his name several times a day.

Allie has not said, "Mama" - yep not ever!

Not when she's fallen down, or

whinning or when I walk in the room!

Being a behavorist, trained in speech therapy I was perplexed.

My theory, I've never spent more than 5 hours away from Allie in 2yrs,

I'm just always there. Who needs to say, "Mama" ?

So this week I've been enticing her by showing her candy

and making her say, "candy" and then she has to imitate "mama"

before she got the candy. Yeah, it worked but I cheated . . .

it wasn't a heart felt "mama" just a trained imitated "mama".

Then last night with a book in hand

Allie says, "Mama" with little effort.

Of course it was the best book we've ever read together and

I can't even tell you which one it was.

Thank you Allie, I needed to here it !

In less than a week I'll be taking a 4 day trip

with my sisters to Cabo San Lucas! I'm so excited,

nervous that my wonderful husband will go a little looney,

and wondering if Daddy will get sick of

Allie saying, "Mama???" Mama???"

Everything in it's own time . . .