What Did You Say?

"Use your words," I tell my 15-month old daughter.  Because telling her to use her words when she only knows "Mamama" and "Dadadada" is so helpful.

Today, she went to stand at the refrigerator door.  "Uuuhhn."  Obviously, that means, "Mommy, could you please pour me a sippy cup of milk?  I'm very thirsty."

So I reached up in our cupboard, rifled around for a sippy cup, and pulled one out.  I filled it up with milk and handed it to her.

"Uuuhn."  She stood with the sippy cup in her hand and pointed up at the cupboard the cup came from.  The door stood open.  More sippy cups were stacked in various piles.

"You have your milk, honey."  I pointed to the sippy cup in her hand.

"UUUHNN!"  Obviously, I wasn't getting it.  

I glanced at my husband.  "Am I missing something?"  

He walked over and hefted Elena onto his hip.  "What's up, pumpkin?"

She pointed at the cupboard again.  He carried her over.  "Can you point?"

She edged her fingers around the open door of the cupboard and swung it shut with a bang.  "Uuhgn."  Obviously, that meant, "There."

Communication.  It's something we all do.  Some of us are good at it, and others... well... stink at it.  In a fight with my husband (yes, we do fight now and then *gasp*), our communication falls apart.  We're reduced to the equivalent of "uuuhn"-ing at each other.  Words just don't cut it sometimes.  Sometimes, we have to show our feelings to each other to make sure we understand. 

I think if we put half as much effort into understanding each other as we do to figuring out what each "uuunhh" of our daughter's is, we'd probably solve all our problems.  Or at least most of them. :)

When Tim comes home from work, I'm going to tell him "Uuunh."  See how long it takes him to figure out what I just said.  (Plus, he'll be really confused, and that'll make me laugh.)