Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Nipples

One of Sophia's many toddler off-and-on interests (alternating with colors, numbers, Cars, Mickey Mouse, Frozen, clay, and animals) is body parts. She loves labeling them and pointing them out on other people. Luckily, she hasn't quite noticed diaper area boy vs. girl body parts yet. I'm bracing myself for that day, though, because it's coming. 

Lately, Sophia had started talking about other people's body parts in terms of relative size. She goes through this litany of comparative anatomy along the lines of "Daddy has big hands. Mommy has small hands. And Sophia had teeny tiny hands. And Ryan has teeny tiny hands." 

She was doing this in the grocery store the other day and the first few times I appropriately responded. But as she kept the repetition going with eyes, ears, head, and tummy, I started tuning her out with an occasional "uh huh, honey" that's enough to placate toddlers into thinking you're actually paying attention. (Except when she said that "Mommy has a small tummy" I may have gone overboard in praising her.)

After one or two minutes of Sophia's continued recitation, my attention was pulled back to her when I heard a couple of people snickering and noticed they were looking at my daughter--my beautiful and brilliant daughter who was proudly pounding her chest as she said, "Daddy has big nipples. Mommy has small nipples. And Sophia has teeny tiny nipples. And Ryan has teeny tiny nipples." 

To their credit, neither of them looked at my chest to see if what she was saying was true. 

The remainder of the shopping trip passed without incident except that I would randomly start giggling.

Sophia: Mommy, why are you laughing?

Mommy: Oh, I guess because I'm happy. 

Sophia: You're happy?

Mommy: Yes, you can tell by my smile and my happy eyes. 

Sophia: Daddy has big eyes...