Maddy wants "...'nilla please"

Tonight I took Maddy Roo grocery shopping. Just the two of us. This is a very rare occurence around here. Michael was sent to bed early due to a missed nap and the resulting very bad behaviour. Melissa was closeted in "Grandmommy's room" working on reading. Allan was feeding the fussy twins Milupa mixed cereal with fruits. This was not going well as the twins are creatures of habit and rice cereal with formula is the normal bedtime snack. Fruit is only for breakfast, don't you know? Strained veggies for lunch, finger food for supper, and rice cereal before bed. No other sequence will do.

So Maddy and I went off to the store to buy more rice cereal with infant formula. And before you ask, Milupa because I am attempting to "collect all" the Milupa baby spoons that come in the boxes. I'm now locked into an eternal quest for for the elusive green spoon. So far we have 3 yellow spoons, 2 red spoons, 2 blue spoons, but no green spoon.

To my absolute surprise - Maddy chattered a blue streak the entire ride.

"Look at the moon, in the sky, la luna, like la luna on my blanket that Auntie Bethie sewed and knitted for me .. It's dark out, no kids outside to play with in the dark .. there is 'nother car out there in the dark, look .." This was puctuated every so often by "We get 'nilla please? We going to 'nilla store?"

The chatter is amazing because until a couple of months ago she barely talked at all. I have been trying to work with her some daily, she has several sessions one-on-one with a person from UBC who is doing a study on language acquisition and then Grandmommy's visit here has meant some added attention.

However the "nilla" request puzzled me. I kept asking what "nilla" she wanted and from where and got only the puzzling answer of "nilla from the nilla store".

Madeleine


Urged on by Maddy's continual chatter and her requesting things by name - our trip for baby food turned into a $100 shopping expedition including 4 new sippy cups for Maddy, 2 cartons of ice-cream, a candy bar for Maddy, hot dogs, juice and other favourite Maddy Roo foods.

Still the "nilla" request continued. She agreed it was "vanilla" that she wanted but NOT vanilla cookies, vanilla ice-cream, or vanilla extract. While walking by the coolers of chilled pop - she started saying "want that 'nilla" again while appearing to point at bottled Starbucks Mocha Frappacinos.

"That's not vanilla - that's coffee," I said and pushed the shopping cart forward.

She was quickly distracted by the huge Christmas decoration displays already up ..

"Want that snowman .. Want that Santa .."

Now letting her pick food was one thing - but buying her Christmas decorations was just not going to happen and I told her so. She didn't fuss over it though - just gave me a "well at least I tried" kind of look.

We got in line, paid for the groceries and then I handed over the Aero bar which Maddy immediately started munching on - still chattering. I just had a harder time understanding her with her mouth full of chocolate.

As we drove home - a chocolate covered Maddy started pointing, grinning ear to ear and squealing, "Nilla store, dat de nilla store! Nill PLEASE."

The "Nilla store" was the drive through Starbucks! Maddy wanted a vanilla steamed milk!

The Season is Coming


So we went to Starbucks and got me a decaf mocha and her a vanilla steamed milk and "not too hot." It wasn't too hot this time and she downed over half of it before we got home - then generously split the rest with Melissa.