I don't want to correct Dorothy when she talks about the "taste bugs" on her tongue.
I buy shoes ahead of time when I see them on clearance, and I convinced Dorothy to help me inventory the sizes in the shoe basket. When we were done, I asked her to count the shoes and told her I would count the shoes on the list to make sure we didn't miss any. "I have an idea," she said. "How about we count by pairs instead of count by shoes?"
While Dorothy was sick last week we were sleeping together in the guest bedroom. One morning, she awoke at 6:30 a.m., and I was already sitting in the living room using the computer. It was dark outside. Dorothy thought it was still night, and asked, "Mama, when are you coming to bed?"
Dorothy has always said that she wants to be "a doctor and a mama" when she grows up. Recently, she has added to the list: a doctor, a mama, a ballerina, a teacher, or a babysitter.
Dorothy refuses jeans. I urged her to wear an adorable jean jacket until she outgrew it, unworn in the closet. On Friday at school the kids had "denim day." Even though I let her know that all the big kids would be out of uniform and wearing jeans, she refused. She says jeans are "boring."
Her understanding of fiction vs. reality and her language are developing at different paces. We were watching a movie where a lynx was chasing a cat; Dorothy asked, "Why doesn't the cat just jump? Cats have nine lives. Then the predator can't get her."