Actually, my kids would hear me say "Yes she/he is." and come running over to the phone and pull it out of my hands.. I used the can/ may I after they were trained to ask-- So if a caller had learned not so ask "is Emily home? but asked "Can i speak to Emily"-- then we started on "Yes, you seem to have mastered speech, I suspect you can speak to her as well as you speak to me..." she thought i was the meanest mother in the world to subject her friends to this sort of interegation.

And we always wanted to meet her friend Me-ann, too, as in "Me-ann Connie are going to the library.. "-- and she learned to say "Connie and I ..."


my other obsession