"I love this baby!"

There may be nothing cuter than the speech of a three-year-old. Recently Amelia has been repeating, "I love the baby," and "I love this baby." Of course mommy will tell her, "I love the baby, too; and I love Amelia" to which she replies, "And I love mommy."

What's funny about these conversations is that Amelia, who doesn't understand the concepts of diexis and anaphoric reference, will almost invariably ask mommy, "Can you say, 'I love this mommy'?" I'm not sure she understands why it's odd for me to say, "I love this mommy," but if it's important to love yourself first - then I guess the statement must be true.

On the funnier side, let me tell you about the six-year-old boy who sometimes comes by looking for Amelia. This boy is full of "good knowledge" and he's always willing to share the things he knows. For example, a couple of days ago he explained to me how another neighbor boy built a nest for a pigeon (I guess that's only funny if you know that the nest is very high out of reach...And that I watched the pigeon build the nest itself while I was at the park). He also corrected me when I explained how Amelia hurt herself sliding down a hot slide (but who would know better than a six-year-old who was no where to be seen when the accident took place?).

Yesterday we learned that the critics are saying that Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 are the best movies in the world.

But one of his funniest quotes so far came when the boy walked into my house with Amelia and said, "Amelia wants some hot chocolate, and I would like some too."

Yeah, nice try kid.

I had no intention of making hot chocolate in the middle of the afternoon when it was almost 90 degrees outside. And Amelia has never, to my knowledge, asked for hot chocolate in her life. She's asked for chocolate lots of time, but never hot chocolate. Still, you have to give the kid points for effort.

Lisa