what does a doggie say?

scott and i have been a little bit concerned with our parenting these past few weeks. it has recently dawned on us that e had quite the vocabulary at 14 months and that miss d's isn't growing at quite the same speed. after a little careful thought, we realized that she doesn't get quite the same amount of attention that e did at this age and that for the most part, we have been negligent in introducing her to new words. don't get me wrong, the girl is super smart, she just doesn't attach words to the things in her world. in an effort to correct the situation, we went for the category of words that seems to be of interest to miss d: animals. (i know, how original!)

miss d is pretty fascinated with the beginning of spring and the activity of the various animals that she sees emerging in our 'hood. she stands at the back door and searches for squirrels on the back porch. she looks out the breakfast room window in search of our canine neighbor, shortie the dog. she chases rabbits and she tries to catch birdies. and the entire time she is doing any of these animal quest activities she says, "hoof hoof".

a trip to the pet store was in order! it was too cold for the zoo, but we have a wonderful pet store (forgive me if you are anti-pet store) nearby and i thought that maybe it could help her out.

and all the while, after cage after tank after cage, she was still pointing and calling out, "hoof hoof".