(I’m listening to “Sometimes Always” by The Jesus and Mary Chain)

Our oldest daughter, Littles, has always been a talker.  She didn’t walk until she was 15 months, but she was talking at 10 months.  She had a few words early on, and it just exploded from there…and it has been hilarious ever since.  We never know what she’s going to say or when she’s going to say it.

For example, when the wife was pregnant with Tiny, her two and a half year-old sister decided to give birth in Costco’s cereal isle.  I’ll never forget the text the wife sent, but more importantly, I’ll never forget my reaction.  The text read, “Littles just gave birth in Costco.”  I wasn’t even surprised.  I just laughed, shook my head, and thought, “That’s Littles for ya.”  As the story goes, Littles stuffed her doll down the front of her princess dress, squatted, and proceeded to grunt and push the baby down her dress and onto the floor.  The, she yelled triumphantly, “Momma!  The baby just come out of my uterus and my vagina!”  Then she took the baby, held it skin to skin, and put it to her chest to feed it.  My wife was very proud.  The onlookers?  Well, to my understanding, there were mixed reactions.

At the time, the wife was pregnant and a birth doula on the side, so Littles was exposed to a lot of stuff.  She knows her parts.  She knows her momma’s parts and she knows her dadda’s parts.  We taught her.  Littles isn’t above telling people she’s on her period.  She’ll grab a pad from the bathroom and say, “My tummy hurts, I think I’m having my period.”  While the wife was pregnant, Littles told everyone who would listen that there’s a baby in her uterus.  When we asked her who was in mommy’s tummy, she’d give answers of, Justin Bieber, or Baby Levi (our friend’s new baby) or, our personal favorite, baby Jesus, before settling on BABY SISTER!

The point is, she says funny stuff and she says cute stuff, and I don’t want to forget any of it.   The wife and I were sitting around tonight watching some old videos, and we’d remember things that she said and we’d say to each other, “Ohhhhh, do you remember that?”  The truth was, we’d both refresh each other’s memory, and at some point those memories will fade.  So, without further ado, here’s a glossary of Littles greatest hits!

“Wubby!” = I love you.  This was one of the first “sentences” she said.  It is absolutely adorable.

“Pile” = Smile.  Little hasn’t put consonants together yet, so we get some cute stuff out of this.

“Pell” = Smell.  Same consonants, same cute result.  “Somefing pells dadda. Pell my bref!”

“Pill” = Spill.  “I pilled, dadda.”

“Nilk” = Milk.  “I pilled my nilk!”  Milk is her favorite beverage.  It can be 95 degrees out and the kid hydrates with milk.  She loves her milk.

“Fumbs Up” = Thumbs up.  If she likes something, she’ll give you a “Fumbs Up.”

“More-gan” = More again!  If we were playing and she’d want to do something again, she’d say, “More-gan daddy!  More-gan!”  The excitement she had need two words and she didn’t know the difference, so she just combined them.

“Tores” = Snores.  One of her favorite books is, “The Bear Snores On.”  So we’d let her read it and she’d say, “And the bear tores on.”

“Pie-cy Water” = Spicy water.  We have a carbonated water machine, and she calls it, “Pie-cy Water.”  “Can I have some pie-cy water, dad?”

“Pecial” = Special.  “I fink you’re pecial, dad.”  Or, “Can you hold my toy, it’s pecial to me.”

“Towboarding” = Snowboarding.  “You going towboarding, dadda?”  “Can I go towboardig wif you?”

“Towman” = Snowman.  “Do you want to build a towman?”  “Frozen” is one of her favorite movies.

“I see!  I see!”  When she was old enough to realize we were taking pictures and videos of her, she would do something funny or cute and IMMEDIATELY say, “I see? I see?”  She would say this while simultaneously trying to pull the phone out of our hand.

“Yemenaid” = Lemonade.  We’d have lemonade and the question of whether she could have some would soon follow.

“Ba-nain-a” = banana.  The middle syllable has a very hard “A.” We’ve wondered many times where that accent came from.

“Hosible” = Hospital.  “Momma has to go to the hosible to help a momma get a baby out of her uterus.”  This is funny, because I used to say “hosible” when I was little.

“Tuggle” = Snuggle.  “I want to tuggle wif you dadda.  Tuggle wif me!”

“Baby Yo-ey” = her baby sister’s name.

“Pee-NUS” = Penis.  “Daddy has a pee-NUS!”  Huge emphasis on the “NUS.”

“Woman Woman” = Wonder Woman.  That’s her hero.  I can’t tell you how much Littles loves Wonder Woman.  In Littles mind, the wife and Wonder Woman are the same person.  She can think that, because the wife is pretty amazing.

“It’s for you, Bob!”  This is the last line in the book, “Giggle, Giggle, Quack!”  It’s one of Littles’ favorites.  She says, “It’s for you, Bob,” in the lowest possible tone she can.

Here’s the last one.  Littles has a song she sings to her sister when Littles thinks her sister is being naughty.  It goes like this, “Baaaaad baby, you always cry, baaaaaad baby, I never know why, you never ever do the things that you should (voice cracking), oh baaaaad baby, why can’t you be good?”  The funny part, besides her singing this song, is that the word “baby” is interchangeable with “momma” or “dadda,” so at any moment, any one of us could be the target of her song.

I write these so I won’t forget, because I already know there’s more I’m missing.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, the 3-year-old and her “baby” are doing just fine.  Wubby, Littles. Wubby.