Maia got a "My Pal Violet" for Christmas. It's similar to, but much less creepy than, another talking puppy that Chloë has. (Had. Is it still around? I haven't seen it in quite some time. Oh dear, I suppose it's possible we may have accidentally mislaid it.) It says some pretty cute things, and has a bedtime-music function and an assorted-songs function, and by "function" I mean "touch-sensitive paw." It's been programmed with her name, favorite animal, favorite color, and favorite food. She doesn't have any of the latter, except maybe breastmilk, but apparently that wasn't a choice because Eric selected bananas. He also selected blue as her favorite color, on the basis that it is not likely to be her favorite color and he wants to see if she can be, well, programmed to prefer it.
This morning Chloë brought it into her room to play with. Chloë likes the thing more than Maia does; it's a good thing Chloë also received a gift that calls her by name (Tag Junior, also by Leapfrog). She pushed buttons and so on, and Maia didn't really notice until "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" came on. Suddenly she snapped to attention, listening and bopping her body to the music, as babies do. It was adorable. The only thing is: I've never sung her that song. Her bedtime song is "I Gave My Love a Cherry," with "Lavender's Blue" for variety. Possibly she's been present when I sang it to Chloë a few times, but she's only been exposed to it in toys, her stroller lion and her aquarium and so on. So where did she learn this preference for it? That'll teach me to think that babies have no secrets.
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