swimming with fishes

I have mentioned before that Ada loves her Baby Signing time, and aside from the sign for 'owie' Ada's favorite sign is by far the sign for "fish". Before signing time I don't think Ada had any idea what a fish was, aside from a tasty treat that Auntie Jackie brought down from Seattle. So imagine our surprise when we happened upon the Pigmy Hippo display at the Zoo - which just happened to have many many fishes swimming around with the Hippos - and Ada ran up to the glass and started wildly doing the sign for fish and shouting 'fissshh, fissshh, FISSHH'. Somehow, Ada was able to make the connection between the animated fish on the Signing Time DVD and the real live fish in the tank.

As parents you have these wonderful moments, Eureka moments, where you realize that you have just found something that your child loves so much they will do anything, ANYTHING, to get that thing they love so SO much. When Ada carried on for over 10 minutes at the Pigmy Hippo display, in awe of the tiny little fish, I had one of those moments. So this weekend, as we prepared for a trip to SeaWorld I used Ada's love for fish to get her to do everything she has been refusing to do lately. Our morning went a little something like this:

"Ada, do you want to get dressed?"
"No"
"Ada, do you want to go see fish? Well then you need to put on pants."
"Ok"
"Ada, can I put up your hair?"
"No"
"Ada, do you want to see fish? Well then we need to brush your hair and get it out of your face"
"silence as she thrust her brush at me"

And we did see fish, lots and lots of fish. And Ada, she was clean, groomed, and well dressed while she plastered her body against the aquarium glass given the leopard sharks smooshy face.