" "

My daughter has started a new thing.

I suppose she has seen me do it.

A couple of weeks ago, she said to me, "Mom, I like those "twice-baked potatoes". "

I laughed. She used air quotes on the words "twice-baked potatoes".

I said, "Honey, why are doing that thing with your fingers. They really are twice-baked so you don't do that thing with your fingers." She just laughed it off.

Later, she said, "I love "Christmas time". Again with the air-quotes. Since I just laughed at her, she has been doing it to everything.

"I like "cookies"."

"I like that movie "Tangled"."

"Is that "Hobbs" (our dog) over there?"

She is still making up her own vocabulary words. I have kept a running list of her vocabulary so I can remember all the funny words she makes up. Tonight she asked me if she can have a snackerdoodle (snickerdoodle), a snickerdoodler, a snackdoodler..... it went on. She finally got it right.

The other night she came into our bedroom in the middle of the night. She said, "Mommy I can't go back to sleep. I had a bad dream." I replied, "Can you try to go back to your bed and go to sleep?" This usually works. She answered, "No mom. I am afraid if I go back to my room, I will have a continued story." Continued story: picking up where a bad dream left off when you go back to sleep. She crawled into bed with me and fell right asleep. These days won't last forever. I'll take them whenever I can.