And vocab at almost-10

So much of the early part of this blog documented the children's growing vocabularies, with delight and amazement. These days I am rarely surprised by the girls' language.

Sometimes other people still are, however, as when my colleague was asking Alice about DisneyWorld. Alice described our experience when the Little Mermaid ride stopped for several minutes while we were sitting right under Ursula's eels, listening to them hiss taunts at passing boats. "At first it was scary," said Alice, "but then it got a little redundant." My childless colleague laughed in surprise.

But every now and then there are times when even I am still tickled, even by my eldest, as tonight at dinner when Alice began to complain of stomach pains as a seeming attention ploy. Edith was skeptical. Alice insisted her stomach had been hurting for two weeks, though less now than last week. Edith shrugged. "So the symptoms are abating; wait another week, and they'll be gone."

Childhood is abating, and I am musing on the idea of officially closing out the blog at the approaching decade mark...