Toddler Tales: Body Parts

In addition to trying to avoid her daily nap and acting like a serious terrible-two sized diva, Diana has reached another toddler milestone: pointing to and identifying body parts, on herself and others. While she's been able to do this for the better part of the last year, it's only recently that she's mastered all of the words for everything, from her hair to her tummy to her toes.

There is nothing cuter than D pointing to her button nose and gleefully shouting "Nose!" (It's less cute when she decides to tell me where my nose is, yanks at it aggressively and nearly pulls it off.) And she really loves reading books that discuss different body parts or playing games like the Hokey Cokey in swim class and getting to show off all her new vocab.

D's also starting to move beyond the basics. I recently got a pedicure (one of the few I've had since Diana's birth), which has led to an obsession with my toes - "Toh!" and nails, "Nay!"

In the bath, Diana has also discovered her nipples - "Nip-nip" - which was rather adorable until she decided she wanted to touch everybody's and started putting her hands down shirts in an effort to grab other people's nipples (not very palatable in public).

It also turned humiliating from a personal perspective when Diana pointed at my face last week and enthusiastically shouted: "Nip-nip!" while pointing to each and every spot in the constellations of acne surrounding my nose and chin.

"No, sweetheart, that's acne," I explained, thinking I might as well teach her one of the most important vocab words plaguing my life at the moment, but not really expecting her to pick it up considering she still struggles with basics like "juice" and her own name.

"Acki, acki," she replied, delighted, and starting happily pointing at every blemish she could find on my body, from moles to scratches.

Despite the embarrassment factor (it's bad enough with me, but what happens when D decides to scream "Acki!" at a stranger?) I'm starting to think that using my body as a canvas to teach D some life vocab may not be a terrible idea.

After countless readings of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, D has still never uttered the word "butterfly," until she suddenly shrieked "butterby" this morning after stumbling across mummy's (usually well-hidden between hip bone and tummy) green butterfly tattoo (conveniently located in the most-guaranteed to become stretched and distorted spot on the body if you're considering childbirth).

As they say, one person's trash is another person's treasure.