Carrota

Muffin and I have a little tradition at bedtime when we read our nighttime stories. Every night she will go to her "library" and pick out one book to read as "hola" and one to read as "hello" (i.e. one in Spanish and one in English). If the "hola" book is originally written in English I just translate it on the spot for her. Last night she picked a picture book as the "hola" book and I thought it would be a good opportunity for Muffin to practice her Spanish. So I asked her to tell me what the different food names were in Spanish, and if she hesistated I'd help her along... Then she decided to be sly and funny… and started inventing her own translations by spanglishizing English words - for example for Carrots, she called them "Carrota". She very obviously thought she was clever because she was giggling through the whole thing. Sigh… she's too smart for me already and she's only THREE !!!

Of Pancakes & Skunks

Muffin has a new favorite story, The Runaway Pancake , which was our Valentine's day gift for her. It’s a pretty cute story actually, and the book even has a CD of John Lithgow reading the story. So now we have a new imaginary friend, the "boy pancake" who comes to visit and play and even has done sleep overs (who knew?). He even greets me whenI come home from work! Of course we all have to be careful not to sit on him, since we can't see him ;)

But don't worry, she has not forgotten about good ol' Baby Skunk... For the past 6+ months we have had an ongoing saga with the poor litle Baby Skunk that fell off a log and hurt his leg. Usually played by Muffin herself (aspiring actresst that she is), with yours truly typically assigned as the person who finds the Baby Skunk, and takes care of the boo-boo. Sometimes I'm transformed into a Princess or another storytime character, but the story is pretty much the same everytime. Baby Skunk even enters into the stories I have to spin for her - say, she asks for a story about Blues Clues, I'll start inventing it, then Muffin stops me & tells me how Baby Skunk somehow has entered this story. Thankfully both Baby Skunk and Mamma Skunk don't stink (she doesn't know how skunks smell and I’m not about to tell her).

I can just see the evolution for our next story, maybe tonight… about how Baby Skunk meet Boy Pancake. My imagination is getting tired from all this invention, help!! Actually I’m very grateful to see how creative she is, though it can be exhausting its also very rewarding.