Cacophony

My youngest daughter found one of those books of birds and their songs on our last trip to the used bookstore that we adore. It's a swell (if a little, umm, noisy) book with nice illustrations, and she fell in love with it immediately. She even chose to spend her own hard-earned (because it's work to be so cute) money from her grandparents on it. She's hugged it and slept with it and pushed those little buttons overandoverandover, picking her favorites and giggling at the one bird that says "RRRRALPH! RRRRALPH! RRRRALPH! Chkchkchkchkbrrrrrchk!" Really. It sounds just like that. She and her sister mimic it endlessly, chasing each other around the house screaming "RALPH!" and sitting on the back porch, hoping to call whatever bird that is to our backyard so they can laugh at it.
It's not too painful, really. If all else fails, I know they'll have a future in this:

Four year olds are the best storytellers.

The girls and I were sitting in the waiting room, waiting for Ian to finish his guitar lesson for the week. Allie was drawing, filling her sketch book with daisies and smiling puppies, loving family and happy owls. Annie was drawing, too. She was sketching a story while she was telling it. It went something like this:
"I am the princess. I am the daughter of the king. I have a golden bride and I ride Pegasus all around. Then one sad day I got stolen. I got stolen all the way to Egypt. The mean men left me in the desert and I was lost. I was surrounded by camel balls."
"You were surrounded by what, dear?" I asked delicately, noticing that the other parents in the room had grown very quiet and were working hard to not look at us.
"CAMEL BALLS. Camel balls were EVERYWHERE!" Annie yelled dramatically, flinging her arms over her head and spinning around. She stopped and looked at me so, so seriously.
"They were going to EAT ME."
I sighed.
"You're talking about 'cannibals,' aren't you?"
"YES! And then Pegasus flew all the way from Greece and saved me and then I flew up to France on vacation. The end."

We've been working like little bees on our play, which we hope to have ready on Monday. I'll put it up here when it's done. It's going to be a winner, I promise!