Zoe’s First Narrative

On Saturday, Zoe had a busy day. It was my dad’s birthday, and there was a family get-together planned at a park in Corvallis. She spent the morning with me while Annie ran errands. Then her cousin Leilani came by with Ryan and Dad to pick up Sean. She was really excited to see Leilani. After Annie got back, we got in the car, and she took a nap on the way to the park, and then played with her older cousins all afternoon. When we got home, she kicked a ball around the backyard with me and Sean before bedtime.

Frequently, while she slowly drifts off to sleep, she will go over her vocabulary. She’ll repeat words she knows or has just learned over and over again, almost chanting to herself. Annie’s gotten used to a bit of random chatter at bedtime, so she didn’t think much about it when Zoe started talking during bedtime that night.

“Papa, Papa?” she said, and Annie nodded and said “Yes, Papa just said night-night to you.” Zoe smiled and went back to nursing.

A minute later she popped back up. “’Lani! ’Lani ’Lani?” Annie said “Yes, we saw Leilani today.”

“Grampa? Ryno?” Zoe continued. “Yes, Grandpa and Uncle Ryan, too.”

Satisfied, Zoe returned to nursing. As she got more sleepy, she talked about the Car (beep-beep!) and Going, and each time Annie smiled and said Yes, and got her to focus on the task at hand again.

But after that, when Zoe started talking about the Ball! and Kicking! and Sean and night-night, Annie realized that she had just recapped her entire day.

Maybe it was just a fluke. As I said, she likes to practice her vocabulary when she’s sleepy, and those are most of the words she knows — but she covered all the major events of the day in chronological order, and I’m inclined to think that she was telling her Momma all about her big day.