Countdown to Four!

"Look at me, Mommy. I'm in the toy box." Hmmm...maybe I should stop call her my dollbaby?

Charlotte is so excited about turning four this weekend that she can hardly sit still. Every day she asks, "What day is it?" And, as I do every morning, I tell her the day of the week, the month, and the date. We talk about what day yesterday was (that Monday follows Sunday and the 4th follows the 3rd, etc.) And then she asks, "Is it my birthday?" "No," I say, "What day is your birthday?" "May 9th," she screams gleefully.


And so began the "countdown to four." On Saturday we celebrated Charlotte's last Saturday of three by attending our buddy Max's first communion and celebrating with his family. Then we visited with a baby friend, Ainsley, who we hadn't seen in way too long (and her parents and sisters, of course. The baby, however, sticks with Charlotte who has renamed her baby doll "Ainsley.")

The last Sunday of three was spent at a new playground with more friends.


And the last Monday of three was spent at school.

But, dear reader, you're hoping for some kind of real update, aren't you?


Here it is: As Charlotte winds up her third year on earth she has started babbling. Yeah, I know, she did that years ago and has been speaking in full sentences for as long as we can remember. But now, she's babbling in French.


At first (last Friday), we heard just the vowel sounds, but the words were nonsense. Saturday night, at Ainsley's house, she was saying things like, "E fou fou e jardin." Ah. A word I recognized. "You want to go to the garden?" "Oui!" Then, "foo foo foo au cours du photo foo foo ebe." Ah ha! "The baby is in the middle of the photograph?" "Oui, oui!"

Today, on the last Monday of three, she babbled in French for an hour before school. At bedtime, she told me all about the books I was reading in English: Pinkalicious turned "une jolie rose." In Stone Soup there was "un petit chat" and "une petite fille en jaune." Then she asked me for "d'eau" and when I handed her the water said, quite clearly, "une verre d'eau." She handed it back to me and said she was ready to "fait dodo," grabbed her "doudou" Bubby, rolled over and ended her last Monday of three.