Ava plays the name game

At one year and nine months (21 months), having heard many conversations among the adults in her life, my daughter Ava has figured out that grownups have different names, as evidenced by the video.

It's a neat developmental milestone, but a little disconcerting to have this tiny being who seven months ago couldn't even propel her own body across the room unassisted turn to me and say, "Tasha? Tasha? Juice?"

Yeeeaaah... um, no. It's still 'Mommy' to you little bean. Or as Jason put it, "I'm not on a first name basis with 21 month olds."

I have friends whose two year old already follows yes and no with sir or ma'am. We're pretty informal out here on the West Coast so I don't think we'll be going that route with Ava, but I do want her to talk respectfully to adults.

I remember visiting relatives in the south when I was a teen. After answering some question with "Yes," an elder demanded, "Yes what?"

"Indeed?" I suggested, more to be humorously meddlesome than disrespectful.

We'll fine tune the respectful language as Ava begins to use more of it, but in the meantime, I'm just happy she articulates well enunciated and appropriately used yeses and nos (rather than yeah and uh-uh) and that she's figured out if she says "Mommy?" six times in a row and doesn't get my attention, saying "Tasha?" certainly will.