Z expresses complex thoughts

Z knows a million things that I didn't know she knew.

Yesterday, there was a dead cucaracha (ew, ew, ew!) in the corner by the front door. I was making her breakfast, when all of I sudden I hear a little girl's high pitched scream. "ahh!!! B!!" (Zoe calls' bugs "b"s...) (further side note: Z is now afraid of bugs because she was bit my a mosquito on her hand...she would look at the bite and cry and say "b!!") Then, I did what any good mother would do. I woke up her father so he could throw away the bug. All during breakfast (and I mean, literally 15+ times) the kid kept saying "Daddy threw away bug." Yes. 4 words. Whole sentence. Our entire breakfast conversation was centered around a dead cockroach. And actually, in truth, she said it like a question because she is still very into wanting us to affirm what she says.

This morning, when Mateo wasn't here when she woke up she asked, "Daddy at Hope Chapel?" What? I didn't know she could say Hope Chapel! This is sort of nice because she associates Hope with all things wonderful. She gets so excited when we go there, she actually knows, based on the roads, when we are headed in that direction. I feel nervous sometimes about saying that Matt is at church or work when she asks where he is. Especially on crazy weeks when it seems like he can be gone a bunch of nights in a row or if he is out of town. I think, I don't want the kid to hate church because she thinks Matt is always there and not here. But so far, so good. And really, I change it up - daddy is on campus, daddy is with so and so, etc.

All this to say that Z is highly aware of complex ideas. The "where" thing really opened up my eyes to this. She asks "where" people are, a ton. Instead of out of sight out of mind, she knows that it is possible for someone to BE and not be with her, that other places exist even if we aren't there and that people are identified by their names. That's insane. Gone are the days of babyhood. My kid is a kid. And speaking of, here is my kid on the slide at a park we played at all morning. She is wearing long sleeves because it was RANDOMLY very cold yesterday and cool today. I love it, she is looking at me like "WHY are you making me wait at the top of this slide?"