There are several things I'm going to miss as The Caterpillar gets older.  

I'm not a huge lover of baby talk and I've not ever really been one of those motherese kinda moms, but I will definitely miss some of the speech substitutions we've all come to think of as adorable in children with newly developing language.  (The Caterpillar is my last bastion of childhood since The Dormouse no longer says "drifferent.")  We've always been kinda blasé about teaching our kids correct pronunciation when they were little.  It's hard enough to get all those thoughts into words and words out the mouth, so we seldom correct them when they pronounce something wrong; we just say the word correctly when we use it and move on.  We don't tend to join in pronouncing it wrong as well.  Unlike how some families have only grown adults and still call it pasgetti because the youngest one said it that way and no one has been able to drop the affectation in two decades. 

Last week I noticed that The Caterpillar has, all on her own, stopped saying fr for the th sound.  She still sometimes says it, but she corrects herself if she hears it.  So, "I'm free years old" is now more like, "I'm fr...thhhhrrREEEE years old."

I know it's inevitable.  I know it's a good thing that she learn how to say these adult language sounds because when you are thirteen, "Let me axe you a question," and "I gotta go bafroom" doesn't sound quite as cute.  Also: Momma has not budgeted for speech therapy.  

But even so, the loss of the fr saddens me like I've lost a beloved pet.  Well, not a totally beloved pet... it's more like I lost a goldfish... or a salamander.  You hardly notice that it's gone until something makes you think of it and then you think to yourself... Oh yeah, I kinda liked that fish.

Here are a few more things I'm going to enjoy while they last:
  1. "The astronaut took off his face clothes." (translation:  He took off his helmet.)
  2. "I don't have new breath." (translation:  I'm coughing too much and can't breathe.)
  3. "I accidentally broke my eyelash."
  4. "I turned you into a frog.  Boop!  I turned you out of a frog again."
  5. "Look Momma, I'm tall inches."
  6. "Get in the car, for the lump of feet, Daddy!" (I believe she was trying to say, for the love of Pete.)
  7. "Take it out and stay it out!"
  8. "Can you show me how to shot a gun?" (Only if you have a time machine.)
  9. "These pants is choking me." (And then clarification when some snickered:)  "My pants are choking my belly."
  10. "Let's play pizza." (This is a game she made up one day where everyone has to put their hands in the middle and then say, "One, two, three, pizzzzaaaaaaa!" Repeat ad nauseum for twenty minutes.)
  11. Thinks all TV shows are cartoons, but when Momma and Daddy sit down to watch TV, they watch commercials.
  12. "That's my toy.  She sole it from me!" (translation: stole it from me.)
  13. "I want to wear my sfarkely pants." "I use a sfoon to eat." (Oh, how, I shall miss the sf for sp substitute.  That one will be more like losing a cat.)