What’s your name? Evie.

Here’s how the exchange tonight unfolded:

“Genevieve, that’s fish. Fish. Fish. Say fish. Fish.”

“Shit.”

“No, fi-”

“Sh-it.”

“Fish. Ffffffffff. Ish. Ffffffff. Ish.”

“Sh-”

“Ffffffffff. You know how to make that noise. Fffffffff-”

“Fffffff- … shit.”

“Ffffffffff. Ish.”

Pause.

“Shit.”

To be fair, she did say fish. She also has said other things in the last few weeks. We’ve been able to turn “shit” into “shoe,” because when we put on our shoes every morning, we make sure Genevieve hears “shoe” about 500 times. Then there’s the identification issue. I’ve been asking Genevieve, about 500 times a day, “What’s your name?” Then immediately following it up with “Evie,” because sure, let’s confuse the hell out of this girl with two names before the 14th month.

So far we’re getting somewhere. “What’s your name? Evie,” I say. And again. And again. Until finally Genevieve has realized that she’s heard “Evie” just about all her life, so now when I ask, she points into her chest. She knows she’s Evie. And when your child learns self-recognition, that’s a pretty awesome thing.

But a second thing also happens when she points into herself.

“What’s your name?” She points into herself. Then she speaks:

“Dada. Dada. Dada.”

So we point at me. “No, that’s Dada. Evie. Evie. Evie.”

“Da-da. Dada.” And so it goes.

In fact, just about everyone has been “Dada” lately. I’m Dada. Evie is Dada. Sarah is Dada. The chair in the corner of the living room is Dada. The glockenspiel my dad gave her for her birthday is Dada. My dad is Dada, which technically is true, but not for her.

Apparently, however, she has a larger vocabulary that we’ve barely heard. Of course, that vocabulary is unleashed at day care, where who the hell knows if anything is true because there is no record. All we know is they tell us things that, sometimes, we can’t believe. Like that Genevieve is reportedly the most efficient and valuable eater of her generation. Parents of the other kids at day care have literally changed conversation to tell us how good Genevieve is at eating, and I’m not sure they’ve ever seen her eat. Sarah and I aren’t sure we’ve ever seen her eat. But here she is, the greatest eater ever.

As far as words she says at day care, there’s a whole lot of “no.” Yes, at 13 months and 30 days, Genevieve is responding to her teachers’ “no” calls with her own “no” call. They’ll point or wave the finger, and guess what she does in return? Genevieve has a 1997 Oprah-level finger wave.

Also the teachers will shush her or kids who are making noise while others are sleeping, which only makes Genevieve shush them back, including the finger over the mouth. We’ve tried these things at home, and yes, she does these things, but we don’t hear much “no.” Maybe day care is inventing a scapegoat. If it’s our child, so be it.

We have taught Genevieve “sit,” which yes, is very similar to “shit,” but this is “sit” because we taught her this while at grandma’s house in Texas. See, grandma has about seven dogs running around the house at any time, and since we spent 10 days there over the holidays, we had plenty of time to teach Genevieve things related to dogs. One of those things was to point down to the dog and say “sit,” as if she’s giving her a command. It didn’t take long for Genevieve to learn and do “sit” numerous times, but only when we asked. See, “shit” just comes out whenever.

Needless to say this is becoming a fun thing to do, and I had the realization at dinner tonight, during the “fish/shit” conversation, that this is becoming the most fun period of raising Genevieve. The nine-month area was wonderful because it was the first time we truly noticed her evolving into a little person who does things, but this area is when Genevieve is evolving into a little person who knows what she’s doing. Her actions have reason. She repeats things she knows are enjoyable, like the now nightly tradition where she escapes Sarah’s grasp after taking a bath. Fully naked, she scampers into the kitchen and begs me to scare her. Once I give her my attention she hurries back into Sarah’s arms. Then she runs back into the kitchen, where she’ll meet my face, giggle uncontrollably and hurry back to the bathroom before I pinch her butt. This is hilarious.

We do this bit four times. For one of the four times I quickly retreat to another room. She of course thinks I’m in the kitchen, so she’ll run and preemptively scream — her way of preparing herself for my appearance. But then I won’t be there, and instead I’m standing three feet behind her. Watching her startled disappointment from behind is actually, a very momentarily sad thing. But of course she turns and sees me right there, which makes her giggle and run away from me. Again, hilarious, but she knows what’s happening, she knows it’s funny, she knows she likes it, and she looks forward to this. Yeah, this is the most fun.

That example also underscores something else about Genevieve right now: she knows jokes. She understands that X is a setup, Y is a turn, and Z is what produces laughter. I’m nearly completely convinced that when she waited to say “shit” in the fish conversation, she was deliberately trying to be funny. And it worked. It was one of the funniest things I had heard in weeks. Sarah and I both cracked up. To top it off, Genevieve titled her head and smirked, like she was totally in on the fact that she was making this superb joke.

Just before that she handled her tortilla like a duck bill, using her lips to keep the flour hanging off her mouth. She had never done that before. Typically she holds onto bread in a clutched fist until it’s dissolved into sand, but this time she was looking straight at us and toying with this tortilla. She knows what she’s doing, and it’s so awesome.

But this is also why we roll our eyes at the “shit” thing. Like, come on Genevieve, we know you know other words. Just bury the horse already.

Yesterday our other experiment finally worked. Sarah fit on her socks and shoes in the nursery as we went through another round of “What’s your name? Evie.” I asked a couple times.

Finally she pointed at her chest: “E-vie.”

I squealed. “We heard that!” said Sarah. She said her own name. She said Evie. That’s her name. That’s her. The wild, independent, furious, funny firecracker who tells teachers “no,” says “shit” as much as we change her diaper, and despite all that, can’t help but burrow her head into your chest as she sucks her thumb and holds her lovey tight. That’s Evie. Only one like her.

We asked again. “What’s your name?”

She pointed at herself again. “Dada.”