'Dat?

So today Ellie is in my craft room with me (yes, she has been so good lately at obeying when I tell her not to touch something that she has been allowed in "my" room and not gotten in trouble for several days now! - of course, I probably just jinxed that by telling you about it...) and she is going around pointing at things saying, "dat?" and looking at me with an expectant face, waiting for me to tell her what it is. Sometimes she tries to repeat what I say, but so many of the things she points at are just too big for her to say.

"dat?"
"That's an envelope."
"'ope."
"dat?"
"That's a chair."

It's cute. She's also started to recognize when she's doing something that will make us happy. Like not touching something she's not supposed to. The other day we were in here and she walked over to my stamp shelves and held out her hand, getting ready to swipe a bunch of stamps onto the floor. Before she got there, I said, "No, ma'am. Don't touch the stamps." and she looked at me, hand frozen in the air. Then she walked away from the shelves. A few minutes later she approached the shelves again, hand outstretched. Before I could reprimand her, though, she stopped and said, "No, no." put her hand down and turned away. I praised her and clapped, telling her that she was a good girl. She got a big smile on her face and clapped along. Then she went right back to the shelf, held out her hand, said "No" turned, smiled and clapped for herself. It was funny! She does it over and over. We've been down here a few times since then and she's still doing that to the stamps, but she hasn't touched them once. It warms my heart to see her starting to learn how to do what is right.