Wo Go?

My mom likes to talk about how, when I was little, I would walk up to complete strangers and ask them: "What doing?" My brother, meanwhile, was always pointing to things and asking: "This? This?" My mom and dad were never quite sure if he was just stockpiling as many words as possible, or if he was testing them.

Stella's question is "Where go?" Or, as she pronounces it "Wo Go?"

(Obligatory Stella photo.)

Sometimes, its particular: "Wo soothie go?" Sometimes, its joking. "Wo go?" ...as she tosses the item in question over her shoulder. Sometimes, its enigmatic, leaving us to guess what she's even asking about. Other times, it almost seems rhetorical, as she asks about something sitting directly in front of her. Regardless, I've never encountered someone so obsessed with the situational geographic locations of various trivial objects.

It probably doesn't help that, often, if you ask her a question in return, she will greet it with a "huh?" as though she didn't hear you. A sample conversation:

"Wo go?"
"Where did what go?"
"Huh?"
"What are you looking for?"
"Huh?"
"What?"
"Soothie."
"It's in your hand."
"Two soothie. Wo go?"
"The other soothie?"
"Huh?"
"Where did your other soothie go?"
"Wo go?"
"I don't know."

...You get the picture.

Actually, it's generally pretty cute.

Another favorite activity of Stella's, when not reading or wondering where things are, is putting her various stuffed animals and dolls to sleep. She'll spend hours dutifully and diligently spreading her blankets and towels out gently over them. Leading Sarah and I to observe that they must have all been bitten by tsetse flies, because they are the sleepiest batch of play things we've ever encountered.

Some examples...

My old Snoopy stuffed animal asleep on a bin full of his clothes.

The baby in her doll house, asleep under a giant hand towel.

Her bath penguin, asleep on the coffee table. Note: That these are all just pictures I took this morning.

At least she now lets their heads stick out from under their blankets. Originally, she'd cover them from head to two... which sort of made our house look like one giant homicide crime scene.