Gesundheit

Chicken, at 10 months, has a mini vocabulary all of his own now.  He says bye-bye, hello ("ey-yo"), dadda, mama, all-done (ah-da!) and more ("mma!").  His first word, however, was not the usual prided "mommy" or "daddy" most parents come to expect.  Instead it was "Ah-choo!"  That's right, the sound of a sneeze.

It was pretty funny to hear.  If someone sneezed we would hear a little baby-voice echo "AAA-chhhh!", even from another room across the house. A real sneeze or a pretend one was sure to get either a chubby-baby belly-laugh or parroted version in response.

Edee figured this out quickly as well.  One day while I was nursing Chicken, Edee sneezed while playing with her toys.  Chicken unlatched, whipped around and started laughing uncontrollably.  Of course Edee thought that was great. When Chicken would turn around to finish his meal, she'd fake an "ah-choo" to get the same reaction.  I think I eventually gave up feeding him because they were both having hysteric giggle fits.

Fast forward to a few weeks later.  I was again nursing Chicken and Edee asked for a drink (it seems like the second I sit down to nurse she all the sudden wants something).  Like I usually do when this happens, I told her to wait until Chicken was finished, then I'd get her whatever she wanted.  Sometimes she would get whiney or throw a little tantrum, but not this time.  It was almost like I watched the light-bulb go off in her head as she started to wind up to whine, stopped, looked at Chicken, walked over bent her face over by his head and said, "Ah-choo."  I knew exactly what she was doing--now Chicken was done eating and she could get what she wanted! "I want my dink, now."

 She still uses this distraction technique whenever I tell her she has to wait for Chicken to finish eating.   Chicken has wised up and doesn't fall for it as often anymore, but every once in a while Edee will get at least a giggle out of him.