imagination

I can now see the end of the tunnel on toddler-dum. I know - Ada is only two and a half, but ever since I returned from Hawaii her vocabulary and her demeanor has gone above and beyond what I would consider truly in the heart of the toddler-dum.

We now have conversations that involve full sentences, subtle jokes, and logic. This is cool in so many ways but the other thing that I find supremely cool is that Ada has discovered her imagination and she is not afraid to put it up on display.

I'm not talking imaginary friend imagination, but exploring the options of life through the power of her mind. How cool is that? Now when we are stuck in traffic on our way home from school, rather than asking for pink cookies that we absolutely DO NOT have in the car. She understands that things like pink cookies do not just appear out of no where, nope those cookies are bought at the store, and are now sitting on the counter right next to the pile of junk mail waiting to go out to the recycling bin. So instead of asking for them, she just starts acting out the activity of pulling her stool over to the counter, opening up the package and taking out a cookie. And then she starts eating the cookie - and she doesn't just do it half way. NOPE. Ada eating an imaginary cookie is just as good and funny as Ada eating a real cookie - with the possible exception of cookie crumbles dancing across her shirt. And it doesn't just end with cookies, she picks flowers, eats strawberries, and creates art all there in the little land that is her mind.

I hope we never lose this version of Ada. Not the two and half year old part, or the part that hasn't quite mastered the art of not peeing on her shoes. But the part that is so sure of what she wants that she won't let a silly thing like the physical presence of her object of desire stop her from pursuing what she wants and going after it.