Little Ears

The expression "little ears are listening" has taken on new meaning for me recently.   I know that Madelyn understands a lot, because if I tell her we are going somewhere she goes and gets shoes - sometimes, hers, sometimes mine, but she clearly understands that we wear shoes when we go out of the house.  On Friday, when we went for a walk, I told her that if she wanted to walk she had to go where we were going, otherwise I would carry her.  Whenever I reminded her of that she would start walking the way we were going until something else distracted her, but another reminder produced good results.


However, even with all of that, it surprises me how much she is paying attention when she is not being directly addressed.  We were driving in the car listening to one of the toddler Pandora stations that I had set up when I song I didn't know about blowing kisses came on.  When I looked at Madelyn in the mirror she was sitting in her carseat happily blowing kisses.  I have chalked up clapping her hands when "If you're happy and you know it" comes on to learning and example - not so much listening to the song, but this was different.  Another time a song came on about a cow jumping over the moon and Madelyn would "moo" every time the song said "cow."  Now we definitely know that little ears are listening.