Mommy Who?

Yesterday we went to lunch at Logan's Roadhouse, a restaurant at Redding.  Everyone was in Redding for the day, so we met Nani and Grumpa and Nini and Gigi there.  Sadie was sitting in her little high chair and I started to quiz her on the names of everyone who was present, to see how well she understands names.  I started with Daddy.  I said, "Sadie, where's Daddy?"  She looked straight across the table at Paul.  So I moved on down the table.  "Where's Nani?"  She turned her head to the right side and looked straight at Nani.  We were ready for a more difficult question.  Grumpa was down the table on the other side of Nani, so Sadie couldn't easily see him.  "Sadie, where's Grumpa?"  She glanced around quickly and then leaned forward a few inches and looked straight at Grumpa.  She responded just as quickly to point out Nini and Gigi.  

We only had one question left.  "Sadie," I said, "where's Mommy?"  She looked to her right.  She looked to her left.  She looked over at the other tables.  Apparently there was no Mommy in sight.  I decided to try something out, but first I should explain it.  

When we decided to breastfeed Sadie for up to two years we were told by several people that we needed to come up with another word for nursing so that she didn't start yelling "boob, boob, boob" every time she was thirsty (that could make for an interesting scene in church).  I decided the easiest thing would be to use the word that I used when I was little.  So I leaned over and said to Sadie, who since I had asked her where Mommy was, was completely ignoring me and said "Sadie, where's Tootie?"  There was an instant look of recognition.  She looked straight over at me and then leaned towards me and started grabbing at the neck of my shirt.  My question must have sounded like an invitation.  

If it wasn't for the refrigerator game I would think that she didn't even know who I was.  However, every time we go in the kitchen we play a game.  We have a bunch of pictures on the refrigerator and Sadie has always loved looking at them.  One of her favorite pass times is being held up to the pictures, while whoever is holding her names each of the people in the pictures.  At first we would pick out all the Mommy's in the pictures and then all the Daddy's and then all the Sadie's.  We usually ended by showing her Santa (she gets very excited when she sees the Santa picture).  

Lately she has started to recognize the names of everyone so well that when we said the names of the people in the pictures she would look straight at them.  So we have started adding pictures of her family members across the country.  That way when she sees all the family this summer, both the Boston and Texas sides, she'll know who everyone is.  It's going to be so exciting!