Teachable moments

A lot of the time I feel as if I might as well be talking to a brick wall when I'm trying to actively "teach" Liza to do something. She's ignoring me, or looking straight at me and willfully doing the exact opposite of whatever I'm trying to show her, or she tries it once and throws everything across the room. But once in a great while, the planets align and her nap schedule is perfect and I'm feeling happy and I look down and she's looking at me, obviously thinking, "Now what, Mama?"

This sort of teachable moment happened as I was changing Liza's diaper after dinner last night . For once I didn't have to wrestle her into submission on the changing pad, she just sat there, calmly watching me and patting her belly. The light clicked on over my head, and I started telling her all about her belly, giving her raspberries and patting it and showing her my belly and doing everything in my power to convey that THIS, this is LIZA'S BELLY, and don't you forget it. And darned if she didn't look at me with some sort of comprehension in her eyes, and when I asked her where her belly was, she patted it. I swear, it was like that scene in The Miracle Worker where Helen Keller finally makes the sign for "water," I was that thrilled.

I wasn't sure if it was a fluke or not - she had, after all, been patting her belly before we began discussing its rotund greatness - so I did the same thing for her head. And, on cue, she managed to pat her head when I asked, and later patted her belly when I asked again. I tried it again, several hours later, and she got both of them right. And she remembered them today, too! Sure, I decided to count as "remembering" the fact that she patted random spots on her torso, not just her belly ... dude, she's only 13 months old, she doesn't need to know there's a difference between belly and breasts. And that area in her diaper? That's her belly, too, at least for now.

My daughter knows the names of two body parts! Hoo-rah! Time to get serious about naming all the rest whenever we're changing clothes or putting on shoes or whatever. I guess at some point we're going to have to decide whether to go the "clinically correct" route when it comes to body parts, or take the "cute but oblique" route instead. I just can't picture Jason saying, "Liza, sweetie, get your hand off of your vagina so Daddy can clean it." Then again, I can't picture ME saying it, either, so maybe we'd better stick with "private parts" instead.