"Say, Aliyah!"

Aliyah loves to talk . . . her vocabulary is well over 100 words.  Dr Dyk said that at 18 months old, they  should be saying 5-10 words.  Yup, she has that mastered!
One of Samuel's favorite games to play with her (especially during meals) is asking her to say whatever word he comes up with.  "Aliyah, say 'hat' . . . Aliyah, say 'brother' . . . Aliyah, say 'chicken'", and on and on the game goes.  Samuel thinks this is great and Aliyah does too!  They usually end up laughing and laughing at each other.  The other day, Hope joined in.  She said to Aliyah, "Aliyah, say laughing" and Aliyah went, "ha, ha, ha!"  So precious.
Aliyah can name everyone in our family including Grandpa and Grandma.  The only name she refuses to say is her own.  I'm not kidding.  It's the strangest thing ever.  I'm worried (but not really) that she has some kind of identity crisis going on!  We point to pictures of her ask her who that is and she'll just smile.  Or we point at her and ask her what her name is . . . again, just a smile.  Or sometimes she'll say "you" and point to herself or "me" and point to herself.  But never have we heard her say "Aliyah" or "Lia" or Lia Rose" or "Li-Li" (the poor girl has a lot of nicknames!)  Today, my Mom was pointing at pictures in a book and saying the word and Aliyah would repeat after her.  My Mom snuck in "Aliyah" when she pointed to one of the pictures of a little girl.  Aliyah just laughed and shook her head and said "no".  Nothing we've tried as worked . . . until tonight.  Samuel and Aliyah were playing their game again and I whispered to Samuel to say, "Say Aliyah" . . . and Aliyah said "Ah-yee-ah".  We cheered and clapped and she immediately realized what she had done.  Little stinker.  She wouldn't say her name again for the rest of the night.  She knew she had been tricked!! ;)  I have a feeling that now we've turned it into a game and now we really won't be hearing her say her own name for a long time!