"What's Wrong Little Pookie?"

Recently, Kyndall has really taken an interest in reading books.  We've always had them around, but she never seemed to enjoy sitting still and letting us read to her.  About three weeks ago, she started VERY clearly saying the word "no".  She uses it all the time, and about 99% of the time it's in the correct context.  Example: "Kyndall, do you want a spanking?"  "NO!"  "Kyndall, can I brush your teeth?"  "NO!"  "Kyndall, quit hitting the dogs!"  "NO!"  You get the picture.  It's cute and her speech therapist is very impressed with the clarity of the word, but Mommy and Daddy are growing weary of hearing it all the time.  We couldn't really figure out why she all of the sudden picked up that word and seems to love it so much.  We try not to constantly tell her "no", so I wasn't sure where she'd heard it enough to use it, especially in the correct context.

I started thinking and then it hit me.  Duh!!  Her favorite book!  Of all the books in our house (and there are a LOT!), her favorite one is "What's Wrong Little Pookie?"  She goes and finds it several times a day and wants me to read it to her.  If you've never read the book, the plot is pretty simple.  "Pookie" is very sad and his mother is trying to figure out what's wrong with him.  She asks him several questions and to each one he replies with "no".  It became very obvious to me that this is where Kyndall picked up her new favorite word!  Thanks a lot, little Pookie.

I wanted to get some video of her saying the word---not because I think it's short lived---but so that everyone else could hear how well she says it.  Of course, the one time I WANT her to say it, I have to almost drag it out of her.  I promise I don't usually antagonize her this much!  It was all for the sake of getting some good video!  =)

Here she is going to find her book.  I think it's pretty neat that out of a whole basket of books, she can dig through it and find her Little Pookie book and bring it to me.

And lastly, here's one of her sitting and reading all on her own.  Like I said, this is all new--She's never had an interest in books at all, or the attention span to sit still for this long.  Hmmm....wonder where she gets that from?  I'm glad she's learning to enjoy reading.  It's more than I can say for myself!