Sleeping Beauty

Alena can talk for hours. I'm serious. Hours. Additionally, she's really good at recognizing when I'm just "uh huh'ing" her. Sometimes I turn on the television to give myself a break from the taxing job of trying to understand what she's talking about. (She has good communication skills, but she's still 3.) It works for about 15 minutes, at which point she runs every 2 or 3 minutes from the television room to where ever I'm taking my listening break to give me a play-by-play of the show she's watching and requires me to respond with enthusiasm and creativity. Not to mention that she doesn't wait to start talking until she has gotten to the same room as me, nor does she stop running when she gets to me. She starts talking at the television and continues to run around me in circles as she talks. As you can imagine this makes my job of understanding what she's saying, and responding with enthusiasm and creativity very difficult. On the other hand, from time to time I am rewarded with one of those happy moments of motherhood where you realize once again that your kids are really cute. Like today when Alena said as she ran around my chair in the office "(Something unintelligible from the other room)...just like sometimes when Daddy's asleep I wake him up with a kiss!"