Delilah’s List of Favorites

October 11, 2021, Hailey Cain

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how much I noticed Delilah developing her own personality. As part of that, she started sharing a lot of her opinions and so we’ve been learning all of Delilah’s Favorite Things. Having her share so many of her opinions and us talking about them has actually been great for developing her communication skills. Don’t get me wrong, there are still moments where she’s repeatedly shaking her head no at me while I try to figure out what she wants, but she has learned so many new words just from us talking about the things she likes. With all this, I’ve started writing things down and taking notes on all of Delilah’s Favorite Things.

 TV Show and Toys: Gabby’s Dollhouse. This TV show has been Delilah’s first true favorite, not like her favorite color which changes from day to day. She absolutely adores this show about a little girl and her magical cat-themed dollhouse. When she didn’t know what to tell us to get us to put it on she made up her own way to tell us. By that, she excitedly shouts “Pie!”, at us because it’s how she pronounces one of the characters’ names (his name is Pandy Paws). It’s pretty funny when she wakes up in the morning and the first thing she says is “pie”, while still half asleep because she’s dreaming about her favorite show. It’s a fairly new show, so we were eagerly awaiting someone to come out with a line of toys for the show. When it did, I was sad that most of them had small pieces and weren’t quite age-appropriate for her. I was half ready to break out the yarn and crochet her something when I found some bigger plush toys of the characters for her. I’m glad I found them because she has one she keeps in her bed, another in the car, and one that stays in the playroom so she has one everywhere we go.

 Food: Noodles. Delilah has a lot of foods she really loves, (cheese, breakfast sausages, bananas, for example), but when it comes to her favorite meal it has to be noodles. Noodles is still a hard word for her to say but she worked hard to figure it out because she loved them so much. While mac and cheese would have to be her favorite, she really doesn’t have a type when it comes to noodles. She loves them all. She’ll pick them out at the grocery store and when I ask her what she wants to eat she’ll grab them off the pantry shelf. I also love using noodles to sneak my picky eater some hidden veggies. I keep a bag of finely diced veggies in the freezer to add to her noodles, I also like to look for pastas or sauces made with extra veggies.

 Song: “I was on a boat that day” by Old Dominion. I blame this one entirely on grandma, who would always play the same country music station of Amazon music for Delilah so they could dance. I mean Lilah loves it and it’s fantastic, but once it’s her favorite we can hardly ever listen to anything else. As she’s learned how to share her preferences more, she’s also learned how to say next until she finds the one she wants, and more often than not it’s “I was on a boat that day,”. It’s so cute to see her face light up when she realizes her favorite song and instantly starts dancing.

 

Person: Mama. Not trying to toot my own horn on this one because I’m basing this entirely off of how many times I hear the word “ma-ma” a day.  I haven’t counted yet but I’m not sure if it will be fun or fatiguing to figure out the real number. I go back and forth between feeling good about how mama obsessed she is and worrying that she’s so shy because she doesn’t get to interact with other people a lot. It makes me feel good to know that she feels secure with me and knows I’ll take care of whatever she needs. At the same time, I also want her to know that she has a whole bunch of people in her life that love and support her. Basically, I just want her to know she’s loved and supported more than anything even when I’m not right next to her.