May I Have Please?

Claire continues to learn at an alarming pace. She's learned her full name "Cware! Owuise! HEIzeur!" and is using "me" a lot more often... it's both strange and cute that she still refers to herself in the third person a majority of the time.


Claire has also learned a new phrase that ratchets up the manners meter more than a few notches. Instead of saying "[noun] please," she's now saying "may I have [noun] please?" and the answer is always "Yes!" because she's just so darn cute doing it. She nods her head at each syllable and says "maye - iye - haf - bwed - pweez?" Over the last few days she's gotten a lot of practice but still requires prompting, though not much. Here's how it works at suppertime:


Claire: "Bwed! Bwed! Bwed!" (she's asking for bread, a traditional request at supper)


Mommy: ...(blank stare at Claire)


Claire: "Bwed pweez?"


Daddy: ...(encouraging stare with raised eyebrow)


Claire: (head nodding) "Maye - iye - haf - bwed - pweez?"


All: "Yay!" (bread is served)


She's also applying this phrase to a lot of other things. Much of it works and some of it doesn't. We'll correct her eventually, but right now I like that she's getting practice at it and I'm not going to split hairs about the difference between nouns and verbs. For example:
- May I have color [with] Daddy please?
- May I have read book please?
- May I have pick me up please?

As a side story, Claire has never liked it when Daddy gets sleepy and shuts his eyes. If I close my eyes on the couch or in the rocking chair, Claire will shout "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" until I open them back up... this can repeat quite a lot if I'm really sleepy. The most recent development in this exchange is her mastery of the word "Awake" so that when now Daddy shuts his eyes, Claire shouts "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!... WAKE DADDY!"  In addition to this, Claire is more tolerant of James being asleep but also likes to announce when James is awake; I suppose this is because he was asleep in her presence for so long (and she was constantly reminded of that) that she's pretty happy when he's "AWAKE!"  The other day, Amanda asked Claire to quiet down in James' room because he was sleeping; the obvious solution for Claire was to go to his bassinet and rock it while shouting "James awake!" - problem solved.