The beeder is on!

Oh boy... it is not too often that I am crying at the dinner table, but tonight I practially needed tissues. Raelin was entertaining us in rare form; my belly still hurts from laughing.

Dinner is a bit of musical chairs for Raelin...she deftly and confidently leaps from her HelloChair (aka High Chair) which is one of those wooden, restaurant style ones, into my lap, plunges her fingers into my food and then wriggles down to go torment the dogs. This week we have dogs plural, as we're dog sitting my mom and Charles' yellow lab, Sandy. Tonight after variations on this routine and eating a carrot here, a carrot there, she pushed her Hello Chair up to our telephone table. Raelin loves the telephone. She frequently can be seen making various phone calls to far away places that require at last 25 digits to dial. The other day she called the YMCA to see if the pool was open. Holding the phone to her ear and cocking her head thoughtfully to the side, she said into the receiver, "Calling the pool open.... calling the pool open..." it took about 10 minutes and no definitive answer was reached.

Anyway, so tonight she makes a few calls and then discovers the button on the cradle of the phone that helps you find the lost receivers. You know, you push it and the cordless phone beeps and you go find it. I use this reguarly and unearth receivers from under the couch cushions and whatnot. Raelin pushes the button. It beeps. She looks at us a bit incredulously. We nod, perhaps too encouragingly.

"Yes, you pushed the beeper."
"The beeder!" she exclaims. Another push and the beeper is off.
"Great, raelin, you turned it off!" We praise, approvingly. She smiles and nods and pushes again.

"Beeder! Beeder is on!" She pushes it off. "Beeder turning off... " push. "beeder on!"

For the next 10 minutes, she pushes the beeder on, listens appreciatively and announces emphatically, "beeder is on!" Sometime the beeder stays on for a good 30 seconds or so before she either "finds" the phone, or pushes the beeder button off. After about 3 minutes of this, I am laughing hysterically at what this scene looks like from the outside: a normal family, a normal dinner, a normal toddler, and the beeder. On, and off. On and off. On... and she sings a round of "The Grand Old Duke of York" above the incessant beeping, seemingly oblivious to Kevin and I hunched over our risotto, shaking with laughter. Finally she pushes it off and Kevin takes the opportunity to suggest a tubby. Luckily, the tubby is highly anticipated and she goes willingly, leaving the beeder behind.

Getting her hair washed was not done so willingly, and unfortunately does not make a funny story.

A book I orderd, _The Emotional Life of the Toddler_ arrived today. Yes, the emotional life of a toddler is a complex one that requires some reading and studying up. I have a feeling that "beeder" will not be in the index however.