So I know everyone says “it goes by so fast”, and believe me, we’re living that. But COME ON.

I think someone pressed the fast forward button yesterday, and it’s freaking me out. Two nights ago Bart read Zoe “Green Eggs & Ham” for the first time. In passing, as he opened the book he read “by Dr. Seuss”.

Yesterday morning Zoe woke up asking for Dr. Seuss.

Now, we LOVE Dr. Seuss, but we haven’t read any to her since they either a) require a good deal of attention span, which she does NOT have or b) even the simple board books have too many words (not for us, but for her, to be clear). Add to that the fact that our nanny doesn’t like Dr. Seuss (sorry, Holly, I just ratted you out), and Zoe has really not gotten any Dr. Seuss. So in ONE NIGHT in ONE BOOK in PASSING our daughter woke up asking for the author and continued to do so for the rest of the day. (yes, Holly, you know what this means)

Alright, so maybe that one instance isn’t so shocking to you, dear reader. But how about this one:

THIS morning, our daughter woke up saying the following, for the first time:

• Zoe: “Hi. How are you?”
• Me: “I’m good. How are you?”
• Zoe: “What is your name?”

I responded with “Susie”, corrected with “Mommy. What is your name?”. Zoe smiled. As I’m sure you noticed, she didn’t ANSWER, only ASKED. Which she continued to do on/off all morning – all questions, no answers. So I asked Bart how we were supposed to teach her to actually answer and create that 2-way conversation people expect. His response? “I don’t know.”

By 4 pm today, before we ever figured out how to “fix” her, we have this:

• Zoe: “Hi. I’m good. How are you?”
• Me: “Good. How are you?” (right, you already answered that…)
• Zoe: “What is your name?”
• Me: “My name is Mommy. What is your name?”
• Zoe: “I’m Zoe.”

And I’m scared. Nice to meet you, small child from some strange, smart family. What in the world will you come up with next? Literally TODAY, she is TALKING. Not just saying words, but responding appropriately (mostly) – and she has a very confident “OK” (as in, “hop to it”) to reinforce whatever you just asked her if she wanted. Of course, in true 20-month-old fashion, she is also prone to some bad behavior – like whining/crying when she can’t HAVE what she wants, but still. IT IS WEIRD how fast she is learning things. Whoever flipped that light switch, turn it back off for a few months, ok?!

Of course, there are benefits to this “smarter” kid. She sat perfectly still to get her face painted today at the KidSpace Museum (here’s the VIDEO to prove it) – so still that the face painters who had been swamped with little kids all day were amazed at her age. That’s good, right? Guess you gotta take the good with the less good. And maybe this confident little smart girl will end up running the world! She sure tried to “run” the face painters when they finished with the ladybug and she instantly pointed to the other side for them to do it again ;)