Just a note

Mabel turned to me the other day and said: "Mommy, I am as-bo-lutely..." actually, I can't remember what she was absolutely, but I was charmed by her use of the word and her little stumble over it. It's pretty rare for her to mispronounce a word, really.

She did tell me a while ago that she likes ice because it's "refreshous" - but that's not a mispronounciation, it's a very intelligent word formation.

She's also taken to announcing, out of the blue and a propos of nothing at all, "Speaking of [whatever], I want [whatever else]."

I can't help thinking that, even though her early-talker status is no longer so obvious these days, her language is probably still a touch more, well, idiomatic than that of many other three-year-olds.

Dash came out of school a few weeks ago brandishing a note he'd written for me, that I had to read straight away before retrieving Mabel from the tree or moving the stroller out of the way of the exiting hordes of grade-schoolers. It said "I luv yoo", with a heart, and he was very proud of having written it without any help.

The next week he brought home a little note for each of us, that read "I luve you". I appreciated the addition of the silent e, and thought I wouldn't tell him about the u just yet. His father had no such qualms, and let him know, so that the very next day we all received our final verisons, with the correctly spelled message.

I'm keeping them all, but the first one is the specialest.