As an example of some our daily/nightly experiences with our two and a half year old child, here are a few logical reasoning skills Cady used today:

From over 50 fairy stickers on one sheet of paper, she took off one that is identical to a picture in her room, and said "It's the same as the fairy in my bedroom".
I have to admit, I was very impressed with this one.

As she was sitting in the dog toy bin, she said, "Pull my feet"
To which her father said, "No, the box might scratch your back, and then it would hurt you.....(then more explanations that she probably didn't want to hear)
To which she then replied,
"Oh."
Pull my feet, please".

I noticed some pencil scribbles on the lid to the dog toy bin, and asked, "Who did that?"
She looked to the distance, then pulled a skillful answer from her thoughts,
"Somebody else!"

As she was in our bedroom, face down on the bed, she said,
"Oh, it's dark in here".

And the last, but not forgotten statement for the night:
Dad: "Goodnight, Pumpkin."
Cady: "OK. Goodnight, Pickle!"
Then laughed hardily at her own similar response to him.

addendum:
About a half an hour after going to bed, she had to get up to go to the bathroom (becomming like clockwork routine lately).
While sitting there, she announced that the moon is awake now.
So I said, "Yes, and the sun is asleep. When the sun is asleep that's when you're supposed to be asleep too."
(short period of silence)
Then she rebuttled, "You're not asleep!"
What could I say, other than, "You're right, because I'm in the bathroom with you"
This was then followed by a whole lot of run on sentences. You can almost see this girl's mind ticking when she talks like this.
(I have to also interject that Scott has a buddha statue and I have a heart shaped card which she made me for Mother's Day, both of which are currently sitting on a shelf, and visible from the bathroom)

Anyhow, the run-on and seemingly transitional sentences went very much like this:

Looking into the hallway, at the dog, "Keegan is not asleep. Oh look, I see your heart, happy Mother's Day, Mommy! And look! I see Daddy's booty (buddha) Shhhhh. Daddy's sleeping, why aren't you sleeping, Mommy? Keegan's being very quiet and he doesn't have a heart. Why doesn't he have a heart? What's inside the heart? Paper? Happy Motherrrrr's Dayyyyyy!"

I nodded and agreed for the most part, but my main response was, "Have you gone yet?"
And her response to that?
"Shhhhhhhh......Daddy's sleeping! Don't talk!"

Gotta LOVE the reasoning skills of a two year old. She just makes my day.

OK, we knew it would come sooner or later. But it really did come sooner than we thought. That fish we introduced into the family just a couple of months ago. Well, he has gone to the fishbowl in the sky.....Hmmmm....It sounds more profound to use a capital F.... Fishbowl in the sky.

He was laying on the bottom of his tank for several days, coming up to just splash out of the water once in a while, then back down to the depths of his beta sized tank. And there he would stay, lifeless, till the next morning when I would ask myself all over again, if today were the day that I'd be flushing him in to the deep tunnel of porceline to meet and greet on the other side. I paid close attention to his lifeless fins time after time, wondering when we would be able to get it over with. But he just kept holding on. My brother thinks it was possibly a pH imbalance. He might be right, who knows.

Eventually the fish croaked, we flushed, and that was that. No biggie. .....uh oh......did she notice? mmmmm hmmmmmm!
"Where's Slippery Fish?" she asked a day or two later.
Ok, so Slippery Fish was more trouble than he was worth, as far as fish are concerned. But what to tell the daughter? So, I took a breath, hoping for the right words, and said the best thing I could think of.
"Well, honey, Slippery Fish missed his mommy and his daddy, and he wanted to go find them, so we let him do that.......umm.....like Nemo did. Now he's happier."

Did it work? Did she take the bait? I mean, really, how do you explain to a 2 year old about death? They have no real concept of the word. Death just does not exist in their thought processes. But, yeah, I think she understood what i said very well. It wasn't a lecture about death, but it was a parallel story about being happier.

"Yeahhh, he found his mommy and his daddy, just like me. And now I happy too!"

Somehow, while listening to my daughter, I felt a bit of gratitude toward that fish. Who'd of thunk it actually had a mission in it's lifetime?

Tables turned, and I became the student. I listened and nodded as she told me and pointed to us, and talked about 'happy'. I then understood what she was trying to make me understand.
Oh, sweetie, Mommy's sooooo glad that you found us too. And I'm so very happy we adopted each other!

Half the time, all I can do is sit back and say, "WOW".
And for now, I'm currently living in that half of time.

Cady adores the people in her family.
She understands the meaning of family. She knows the importance of family. She totally understands it.

We had the opportunity to go to my brother's house for a few days. Unfortunately, Scott couldn't go with us because of his new job title, but Cady and I had a blast. We got to see my other brother's sons, who were just kids last time I saw them, and we did so many exhausting and fun things that I came home more tired than I was before we went on our mini vacation.

We spent time at their pool side, and then went to a park to view the fireworks. We also went out on the lake, with my brother's new 10 person boat. Cady has grown so much in the past few weeks. She now says complete sentences that are logical, and listens when no one thinks she hears them. I tried explaining to a four year old that Cady is only two years old, and she heard me say, "she's kind of like a baby still" To which Cady replied several times, "I'm not a baby!" Yeah, I know sweetie. I suppose you're not quite a baby, any more.

And now, the letter F. It's not just for fireworks.



F is for floating




F is for FREAKING big cousins and big brother (cousins on the left/middle and brother Daniel to our right)



F is for flying things







F is for finding toys



F is for finding more fun




F is for family

Well thanks to everyone who has asked for more information. Unfortunately, as things go, some things (that cannot be discussed) have caused me to be unable to reveal information at this time. I can say that the unanticipated delay is still a very very good thing, and I will offer more when able.

For now, I can only offer one thing...



This thing is freaking awesome!!