"A very long time ago now, about last Friday"

Edith has started to love hearing stories of what she was like when she was younger. Twenty-eight months seems such a brief span to an adult--to us the whole thing is part of one discrete period that we're still living, her babyhood/our seminary housing days--that it's strange to realize we can tell her stories about what she used to be like and it's really very different.

Edith is proudly owning these recollections. "When I was a teeny, tiny baby," she'll tell people, "I used to say 'muh-mih,' not 'pumpkin.'"

A teeny tiny baby, like, last Halloween. Eleven months ago. Sigh.

She's clearly got Boger and Lank genes, because she is developing a delight in telling family stories more generally. She currently likes the one:

"When Daddy was a little boy, he went on the Ferris wheel with Uncle Tim. They stopped at the top and it was dark and Daddy was a little bit scary [sic]. But Uncle Tim say 'It's okay, you not need to be scared, we coming down.'"

Actually Uncle Tim said something more along the lines of "Yep, Tommy, the fair is closing for the night and they forgot us up here. We're stuck." But we're not sure Edith is ready for that version. She's already wide-eyed with the drama as it is. For those of us who weren't actually around for that fair in 1982, it's too hard to believe of her kind and loving Uncle Tim anyhow.

Telling stories sometimes requires complicated grammatical constructions, and Edith is increasingly trying those on for size. She sputtered for quite awhile trying to get this one out the other day but eventually told me, "Daddy thought I was in my room, but he didn't realize I was actually opening the 'frigerator."

Okay, so the stories aren't always scintillating. But give her eleven months.