Where did you get that?

We pause in our infant chronicles for a new edition of "Where on earth did you learn that?" featuring Miss E.M.E. This month's selections:

Edith and I were coloring in a Sesame Street Christmas activity book. She told me to turn my head so she could color something that would surprise me. Instead I got up and went into another room to tidy up. Pretty soon Edith came in to show me her surprise, announcing, "Mom, you're going to be really griefed out by this."

A turquoise-blue Bert might grief out anyone, no? Especially Bert himself.

***

We were at the grocery store, because we needed milk and I had a craving for some dessert. (I'd forgotten the joy of eating plenty of food and still losing several pounds a week. Ah, postpartum breastfeeding...) We were wandering through the bakery section, and Edith asked Tom why were there. He told her that I wanted to pick up some cookies or cupcakes or something. She came over to me prepared to wheel and deal:

"Mom, I heard you had a mind to buy some dessert."

***

Edith was asking me to read her a story. I was preparing dinner and told her I would read as soon as everything was in the oven. She kept asking as I moved around the kitchen. Finally she said, "Mom, you need to hitch up and get a move on!"

Actually, it wasn't hard to figure out the source of that one after a minute. Edith is a devotee of Cars, so I wasn't surprised when she confirmed it was a line from the movie. What was striking was that without knowing exactly what the sentence meant but having a general sense of the sentiment, she could extract it from one situation (racecar Lightning McQueen urging his 18-wheeler to hitch up and start a trip) and boldly use it in another that struck her as similar.

Indeed, it's amazing to me how much kids take on faith linguistically. Edith was "reading" me The Christmas Blizzard, a recent favorite picture book. It was an insight into her reception of stories: Every page or two she would recite a sentence word for word--for example, "He screwed up his courage" or "It was rumored she could cast spells"--then stop and say, "I don't know what that means" and wait for me to explain the meaning of the language she had just uttered flawlessly.

***

Incidentally, Edith used to get so frustrated when we didn't understand something she was saying, flying into a rage when we asked her to repeat herself. Recently, however, she has been the first to acknowledge that she has trouble pronouncing something and seems to take it in stride, even when the potential consequences of misunderstanding are significant:

Reporting back from Santa's visit to her preschool she said that Santa promised to bring her an engine. "An engine? Is that what you wanted?" I asked, since she hadn't mentioned wanting new trains.

"No, I was saying engine se-se-seds," she told me.

"Sheds?" I asked.

She nodded. "That's hard for me to say. Santa didn't understand me."

I was impressed at how calm she was about the big guy misinterpreting her wish.

***

Similar to the mystery lines in The Christmas Blizzard, we were singing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in the car the other evening, and Edith asked what "You'll go down in history" meant. I tried to explain, realizing as I did so that she actually knows the names of very few famous historical figures whom I could use as examples.

"Like Elizabeth Cady Stanton," I suggested, remembering our women's suffrage conversations.

"Or Hillary Clinton," she suggested. I agreed that Hillary Clinton would probably go down in history.

"Mom, she's in Obama's cabinet now."

??

(Further probing revealed she did not, in fact, have any idea what a Secretary of State does. Then again, neither did I when my social studies teacher appointed me to that position in a mock government exercise in eighth grade.)

She spins...

She flies...

She talks to the animals...