I'm in the bathroom this morning doing my usual routine.  In comes my 15 month old and our quirky (and a bit annoying) tabby cat.  The cat leaps into the bathtub and makes himself at home.  The toddler sees this and immediately heads for the tub.  As she peaks over the side at the cat, he meows at her, to which she responds, “meeeoww”.

I pause for a moment as I watch the two exchange some sort of “cat dialogue” with varying pitches and lengths of meows.  It marvels me that I can sit in front of that child and repeatedly request, “say momma” or “say more” and she'll grunt at me something that may or may not at least contain the same number of syllables, but she can mimick the cat almost verbatim.

The little cat/child conversation ended of course the moment her “petting” felt more like a “beating” and the cat vacated to under the bed.