Three

Three is such a lovely age and our three year old is full of charms. This is not a mommy blog, of course, but one of the joys of motherhood is all about the joy of watching a child come into language and that's the reason for this little celebration of three.

She is trying to memorize her favorite song, “Ma-ma-ma-Mexico,” as she calls it, requesting that one track on every possible occasion.

Last night, walking down the gravel road from Grandma’s cottage to ours, she had her blankie on her head. Then she put it around her face like a shawl or a hood: “I be a little girl [gull, in her Jersey accent]; you be da wolf.”

“Roar!” I say.

“No, you be a wolf like a grandma, remember? You lie in da bed. I come to you, right?” And she proceeds to dramatically skip down the road, “La-la-la-la-la.”

I have never read Little Red Riding Hood to her.

It’s such a wonder when they learn things from unknown sources.

And the Jersey accent is, in itself, a source of great merriment. My husband and I were imagining a scene from The Sopranos that would make use of two of her recent expressions:

“Oddawise, it gonna float away” and, upon seeing the night’s green vegetable: “I don’t want no ‘cchini.”