4-word phrases and more

Never in my imagination of being a parent did I think I'd be measuring my child's growth by the word count of her sentences.

This past weekend, as I made breakfast, Claire dumped out all her barrets on the kitchen floor and said "Da. Play Claire." Which I translated to mean, "Dad, play with me."

It wasn't a request.

On Monday, at Dana's, Claire said, "Take the shoe off," her first known use of "the."

She's also taken to bossing Dana's dog around. "Mo! Outside!" she says as Mo naps. She claps her hands to get Mo to move, Dana reports.

We had a breakthrough last week with the potty too. She was walking around the back yard naked when I realized she was holding a bucket behind her butt and saying, "Pooh." I asked, "Do you want to sit on your potty?" She replied, "Uh-huh!" We ran inside, located the potty and brought it out to the back patio. She sat on her potty, clapped her hands, got up, stuffed it full of toilet paper...but never actually used it. Oh well! Baby steps, right?

Earlier this week, she wet the doormat on the back porch and immediately (and repeatedly) pointed out her accomplishment to us. "Wet! Wet!" she said. "Claire, wet, wet." We both nodded furiously.

Yesterday, Dana reported another four-word utterance from Claire as they walked around the neighborhood: "Loud! Build new house." Doesn't that just say everything about the state of the home construction market around here?