As we were getting ready for bed tonight, Ngnat picked up her nighttime sippy cup and handed it to me.

"Daddy, I want fwesh wata."

"Fresh water?"

Nodding her head, "Fwesh wata."

"When did you start using adjectives?"

"uh-huh."

And that was all I could get out of her on the subject. It's always a mild surprise to me when I she tosses off a new word as if she's used it all her life. Adjectives are just shocking. Nouns I'm used to, as we entered the "what's that" phase a couple of weeks ago. Bedtime stories have become exercises in patience, as she has to point to each and every item on the page and have it identified before we can proceed.

"What's that?"
"That's a panda cub, honey."
"What's that?"
"That's a panda daddy."
"What's that?"
"That's a panda mommy."
"What's that?"
"That's the panda mommy's tail."
"What's that?"
"That's the panda mommy's ear."
"What's that?"
"That's the puffer belly."
........
"What's that?"
"That's the fifteenth rivet on the undercarriage on the right of the puffer belly."
"What's that?"
"That's the sixteenth rivet on the undercarriage on the right of the puffer belly, honey.*

And then I can turn the page. I try to read short books.

Not that I have much choice in the book reading department. Ngnat piles them in the middle of the bed and selects from the pile, and I have to read that one right then or there'll be hell to pay. The pile grows every larger with each passing day, as she explores the bookshelf in her closet, or brings another book home from the library. Her mother and I learned very quickly that to drive by the library means we also have to stop at the library.

"Liberry!"
"Honey, it's almost time for dinner."
"LIBERRY!"
"Taylor, we just went to the library yesterday."
"LIBERRY!!"

So we go to the liberry, and shush her when she screams "PAY PUZZLES" at the top of her lungs, and pay puzzles, and let her pick out a boog, and check out boog, and go home and read boog. She's picked out startlingly age-appropriate books so far, not that I wouldn't let her check out "A Children's Guide to The General Theory of Relativity" just to see the look on the librarian's face when she plunked it up onto the desk. They're not necessarily seasonally appropriate, which is why for the past two nights we've been singing "The Little Drummer Boy". She likes to do the descant.