The right way to ask for something

Chiara has a new way of asking for things these days. When she comes into the kitchen, she'll say, "I want too much orange juice." If you ask her how much milk she wants, she says, "Too much." Imagine how useful this could be in our adult lives. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "Say when."

I find it really cool how Chiara is clearly progressing to a new level of development. She's starting to try out new language skills, new motor skills, new thinking skills. Just this weekend she started writing the letter "C for Chiara" and the number 1. She can also make an "O for Olivia." It's as if you can see the wheels spinning and the synapses firing in her little head. Truly amazing.

She is even growing by leaps and bounds on the bedtime prayer front. Now at night, instead of just running through our family blessing where we name all of our relatives and close friends, she wants "new prayers." So far we've experimented with the basics: Hail Mary, Our Father, Angel of God. The first time I said the Our Father with her, we finished up and she looked at me and said, quite seriously, "That's a good one." Now she asks for what she calls "the Jesus one," which is the Our Father. I find it really intriguing that she associates the Our Father with Jesus. How did that happen in her 3-year-old brain when I know I didn't make that connection for her. Very, very cool in a spooky sort of way.