Jibber jabber

I think Violet's reputation as an incessant chatterbox has been pretty firmly established.  It starts first thing in the morning.  Out of the foggy depths of sleep, I'll hear in the distance, "Mamaaa! Mamaaa!"  It usually takes me a few minutes to become fully aware of what I'm actually hearing, but once I recognize it, there's nothing else it could be.  She calls "Mamaaaa!" until I come get her.  Sometimes I'm tempted to sing "Ooooo" a la Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in response, because that's what all the wailing calls to mind.

If I'm lucky, it will be close to 7:30 in the morning.  However, I have been unlucky this week, and it's been closer to 6:30.  I've been bringing her back to my room to try to get her to snooze just a little bit longer.  I haven't been entirely successful.  But regardless of whether she actually goes back to sleep, she wants to cuddle right up next to me, as close as she can.  I could never sleep like that, but she wants one of my arms wrapped tightly around her and the majority of her body touching some part of mine.

Once we finally get up, she will usually use the toilet and then we get dressed.

And then the ceaseless prattle begins

She is constantly asking me for food.  "I want to eat!" or "I'm HUNGRY!" are constant refrains in my house.  The way she is about food drives me absolutely bonkers.  She will ask me for something to eat; I make it for her; she takes two bites and says she's all done.  That's fine.  I don't care.  I was never going to be one of those moms that would make their children clean their plates.  I want my kids to understand when they are full and to honor that.  But, not even five minutes after she is "all done" with her food, Violet will demand something else entirely.  If I tell her, "No, eat what I already made you," she throws a massive tantrum.

I am so over it.

I prepare so much food for her that I'd say I don't understand how she stays so little, except that I have partially eaten portions of food scattered all over my kitchen counter.  It is incredibly frustrating, especially when she asks me for the same thing that she has left uneaten not even five minutes earlier.

She has lately been taking to asking me, "What doing, Mama?"  All. The. Time.  She will seriously ask me, "What doing, Mama?" five times in the span of a minute.  It's to the point where the answer can really only be, "Answering this question over and over and over." She has also been asking, "Why?" the past couple of weeks, which is not nearly as annoying because it's not nearly as frequent.

For as verbal as she is and as big as her vocabulary is, she still has a few things that she doesn't quite get.  She cannot seem to keep the difference between "upstairs" and "downstairs" straight.  She is always telling me "Go upstairs" when we are already upstairs.  She'll also ask to go home when we are already home, and she keeps insisting even when I tell her we're already there.  Another thing she doesn't quite get is when we apply adjectives to her.  No matter if we say, "Are you a good girl?" or "Smart girl" or "Naughty girl!" she invariably answers, "No, I'm not!"

Sometimes I ask her, "Do you love your mommy?"  When she's feeling mischievous, she says, "No" with a laugh.  I'll run through all our family members.  "Do you love Daddy? Do you love Jack-Jack? Do you love the kitties?"  She'll answer "no" with a naughty grin.  But she never answers this question with a no when I ask about my parents.

"Do you love Lovey-Dovey?"

"Yes."

"Do you love Appah?"

"Yes."

It sounds a little terrible to admit, but I've kind of started dreading getting in the car with her, because she just won't ever stop talking.  It would be one thing if she was just happily chatting away to herself, but she wants continual validation and reassurance that I'm actually listening to her.  She reminds me a lot of this clip from "The Family Guy":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6DdijYT9o

This "conversation" comprises a huge chunk of our car talk:

"Mommy!"

"What, Violet?"

"Mommy!"

"What, Violet?"

"Mommy!"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT, VIOLET?!?!?"

"What doing, Mommy?" or "I'm HUNGRY!"

Another thing she likes is to have me sing songs to her, usually ones that I can personalize with her friends' names.  Yesterday, I sang "Elmo's Song" using her name, Jack, myself, her dad, her grandparents, about 10 of her friends, and then random things we were passing as we drove.  I often sing "Happy Birthday" to this cast of characters as well.  This song about Pecos Bill from Elmo's Wild Wild West and the theme song from "Ni-Hao, Kai-lan" are also oft-requested selections.

I much prefer it when she sings songs.  It's funny to hear the words she uses when she doesn't know the actual lyrics.  The other day, she was singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  She didn't know the "Up above the world so high" part, so she was just mashing together a bunch of syllables that sounded about right.  But then she got caught in the infinite loop of the song, since it starts with the same, "Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are."  She sang it probably five times in a row.  It was really cute.  If I hadn't been driving, I would have loved to have video taped it.  She also sings this one part of Kai-Lan that goes, "I got it, I got it, it's really really true."  The next line is, "I got it, I got it, I know just what to do."  But she doesn't know that part, so again, she just sings the part she knows over and over again.

She also sings this song that Jack made up that originally started like this: "The juice and the ice and the ice and the juice, blah blah blah blah, hit your face!" and then Jack would smack himself in the face with the palm of his hand.  Of course, Jack being Jack, it's evolved to all manner of pairings, but the one thing that stays constant is the "Blah blah blah blah, hit your face!" part.  I'm trying to get Violet to change it to "kiss your face," but I'm fighting a losing battle, since they both think smacking themselves in the face is hilarious.

The chatting doesn't stop even when she's asleep.  Like her father, Violet talks when she has vivid dreams.  I've heard her yell, "No, I don't want it!" "Mommy!" "What?!?!?" and other unrecognizable words in her sleep.  It can be a little unnerving when I'm awake in the next room to hear her little voice in the middle of the night.

As with most things like this, I wish I could bottle up all this wanting to talk to me all the time and just portion it out in small doses over the rest of our lives.  I know there will be a time, when she is a sullen teenager or away for college or a busy young adult or even busier mother, when she can't or won't want to talk to me all the time.  I know I will regret ever being annoyed that all she ever wants to do is chat with her mom.

But in the meantime... shhhhhhhh!!!!