Smarty Pants

My little girl has been impressing me so much lately.

For many months now we have been teaching Emi to say goodbye to us or family and friends anytime the situation is appropriate. And for the last several months, when prompted, Emi would wave goodbye accordingly. But now in the last few weeks she has been doing more. She was ready to leave the tile shop last night. How do I know? She started waving goodbye to the tiles. Oh, and the stranger that got a little too close to us at WalMart, well, she waved goodbye to them too. She is even waving goodbye to food I put in front of her that she doesn't want to eat. My favorite is when she waves and says "BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Or how about her ability to use words in appopriate situations. Sure, she only knows a few words, but she has totally perfected the use of them. If I hand her a glass of water she hands it back to me and says "No!" She wants chocolate milk instead! Also, when I hand her the glass of water, before even tasting the liquid, she holds the glass up and looks at the color. If she sees its anything but chocolate milk, it gets handed back to me.

It's so interesting that I never had to teach her that she could just look at the color of the liquid rather than tasting it to see what she wanted. I never taught her that she could wave goodbye to people or things she didn't want to be around instead of just using it when people are leaving. At 14 months, she learned it all on her own.

Which is why I'm left a little confused. Why can my 14 month old pick up these little cues in the world without being taught, yet fully educated people to whom I try to explain simple concepts, simply can't pick it up. It's strange, really.