the faces, feet, and phrases of one Zoralee Rena

elbow ouchie

Christmas dance outfit from Aunt Connie

my view kissing Jason

Zoralee has been developing at least three separate languages over her two years of life, four languages if you include whining. But now I'm bragging.


1. As soon as she found her voice box, she began perfecting the blithering monologue. This is done almost exclusively before an audience - by phone or Skype or in person. She wants so badly to talk and talk without pause, but she can't think of real words fast enough. Problem solved with undecipherable, unrelenting drivel. As she grows, she sprinkles in more and more English words and phrases. These monologues are delivered in a trance-like state, where she just wants you to listen and nod. Even audience smiling is off limits, as it detracts from the seriousness with which she delivers her crucial speeches.

2. She can speak in fairly elaborate English sentences, when she is quiet enough to work it out in her head first. Those are the sentences that wind up in my facebook status or get written down in her baby book notes. (I say notes, because as yet, the book itself hasn't materialized. But I have the supplies! It's my next project, serious.)


3. Lately, as of the last month, she has started intentionally using silly talk, as a way of being funny. She'll look at me and say something totally nonsensical, then wait for me to laugh or talk back that way. She thinks about these non-words, saying them slowly and deliberately, like she does with English. She's looking for reciprocated silly talk from her audience.

So these are some things Zoralee has uttered in the last couple of months, but if you see her for a few hours and only hear her blappity-blap language, please don't think I'm delusional. (A string of periods indicates pausing to think.)

*   *   *   *   *

We were all three walking around the Motherhood Maternity store, and Zoralee was paying special attention to the purses:
            Z: Let's see. What does Zoralee need to buy? What does Zoralee need to buy?

*   *   *   *   *

I lit two candles I got for Christmas. Zoralee stood and watched them in awe for awhile.
            Z: What are the candles doin,' Mama?
            me: Well, they're burning...uh...that's all candles do. The little wick in the middle just burns.
            Z: [long pause....thinking....] They're dancing! I'm dancing with them!

*   *   *   *   *

            Z: I have no idea....how to get more friends. Friends don't like Cheerios. [she was eating Cheerios]
Me: They don't?
            Z: No! They only like baby Cheerios.

*   *   *   *   *

At a restaurant, we saw a man in a uniform like Papa wears.
            Z: That guy goin' to work! That guy goin' to work!

 *   *   *   *   *

            Z: I do what I want. I am a free man. 


Zoralee was very confident of what Bennett needed while he was visiting us in December, and she still knows what he needs if she hears him cry over the Skype. "Bennett's cryin!' He needs his mama." or "Bennett's hungry!" she'll say. Similar insights are applied to small birds she sees in the parking lot. You'd think Zoralee was projecting hunger onto other beings, in a perpetual state of hunger herself. But nope! This child is allowed to eat all the day and night. Sometimes I feel like my main job is to keep calories going in, because lands alive, they surely go out in the form of energy, energy, energy from dawn to dusk. In fact, she knows that the best way to get me up in the mornings is to whine, "I need fooood." Who can lay in bed with a tiny creature begging for food nearby?!

dirty summer feet at Christmas

a freshly mopped floor