annaleigh is a genius

This kid cracks me up!

I know every mother feels that their child is highly intelligent.

I am no exception.

I can't help but feel she is wise beyond her years.

Each day is filled with new discoveries

and newly expressed {and oh! so adorable} behaviors!

For example,

today,

right before her nap-time,

we had reached our "book-reading-quota".

Meaning = I will not read her any more books due to the fact that she actually has to nap at some point.  Otherwise, we'd read books continually, for the rest of our lives, until we died in that rocking chair.

With a last ditch-effort, she reaches across me, to finagle her fingers to find one last book.

She ever-so-sweetly asks me to read it to her.

Even attempting to manipulate my hand to hold it.

When I firmly, yet kindly, refuse,

she takes matters into her own hands.

She strategically parts the pages of the book,

Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman,

and begins "reading" it aloud.

Her mouth starts stringing together sounds and babbles that resemble a form of language.

With an actual word sprinkled in the mix, here and there.

In the first few pages I can understand the word "mother".

She gets to the page with the kitten, and I clearly hear, "kitty".

But the best part:

we get to the page where the baby bird stops to think...

...she places her finger in the air and begins tapping her head...

...all the while saying, "hmmm...?"

She continues reading the book to herself.

When she finishes,

she gazes up to me with her big brown eyes as if to say,

"Aren't you so proud of me?  Did you hear what I just did!"

I can do nothing else but laugh out loud,

kiss her forehead,

and squeeze her little body into my hug.

Yes, my sweet girl.

I did hear you.

And I'm more proud of you than you'll ever know.