Chatty Cathy chats again.

I was going to write a few months ago ago about how Eleanor had started using direct and indirect articles ('the' and 'a') in her speech, and how she would just throw them in there sort of willy-nilly to see if they stuck. For a long time, 'a' has just been a placeholder for whatever word she didn't know in the sentence. 'Mama eat a lunch a Eleanor!'

She has mostly sorted them out, though she still says 'for the Mum!' when she brings me something, and then about two weeks ago she suddenly figured out pronouns, and now DERE IS A EVERYTHING.

She reads books to herself and it sounds like, Dere is a pig, and dere is a sheep, and dere is a brown one, and dere is a green one. Where a monster go? DERE he is.

She's also saying 'I'm dancing!' and 'I'm running!' sometimes instead of 'Eleanor doing it!' And I know that these are necessary and exciting cognitive developments, but Third Person Eleanor is so hilarious. It'll be like when she loses her lisp, and I'll be glad of it because she won't be made fun of by her peers, but also I will be sort of sad.

But we have these spectacular wonderful conversations now where she turns both her palms up and goes, Wherrrrre H'nuggles go? Wherrrrrre daddy go? (And then I make her guess, and then we go look in his office, or in the bathroom, or in the bed, and finally, He go a work!) And then the other day, inexplicably, Wherrrrre the floor go? And Joel and I looked at each other and shrugged, and Eleanor laughed and laughed, like she'd told the best joke.