I was thinking recently that I never say much about my daughter in this blog--at least not compared to the coverage I've given my son and his inadvertent and intentional witticisms over the years. The reason is pretty straight-forward: she doesn't speak very well. She's 4 and has terrible pronunciation. No F's or V's. Mixes S's and Th's. She lisps and wahs in the most adorable way, so for the longest time, we endured her garbled speech because it was so buggering cute. She's plenty smart. Understands everything said to her and actually has very good vocabulary and syntax. Thee dus taugz toe nobody good unnersan howr.

That alone makes it hard to quote her sometimes. She's also doesn't have quite the analytical mind of my son, so she tends to take things at face value, whereas the boy is always looking at things sideways and drawing odd connections. Anyway, she's finally going to get some speech classes this fall, which I hope will help and maybe even free up her bon mots a bit.

She still has some good ones, now and then. For example, last night she was dressed in full princess regalia (shoes, dress, necklace, bracelets, tiara) and playing a computer game. I told her it was time to go downstairs for bath. She ignored me so I had to yell at her a little (believe me, it was mild... not that I haven't roared at the little nutjob on occasion). Anyway, in the bathroom, she takes off her crown and jewels and drops them in the trash. She's crying and saying she doesn't want to be a princess anymore because princesses don't get to go on computer. I start to explain--perhaps a little too academically, and anachronistically--that real princesses most assuredly use computers, just like she does. And the take classes like she does, and go to school like she does, because they need to be smart when they grown so they can become queens who rule the people wisely. She looked at me, still bawling, and said:

"No they don't! They just get married!"

Damn you, Disney! Damn you all to hell!

-- mm

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