the facts and fictions of Ellie

Fact: Ellie is 3.
Fact: She is a really articulate kid.
Fact: Ellie is a firecracker.
Fact: When firecrackers are firecrackering which they often do...firecrackers go bang...thus loosing some of the articulateness.

Factual translation: When Ellie gets going...her words start to go too.

Fiction: Mermaids.

Do you remember when you were a small kid...and you could lay on your tummy in the bathtub and fit all the way. And do you remember pushing off one end with your toes and sploushing to the other end and water splashes up? And then you push off with you hands back to the other end??? Ohhhh yeah me too. So clearly. This my friends is how I found Ellie in the tub. Sploushing back and forth.

Fact: Water is EVERYWHERE.

Fiction: (All the while Ellie is telling me this she is sloushing back and forth.)

Mama...I am a mermaid. (sploush) And Addy is a mermaid. (sploush) And you are a lermaid. And Papa. (sploush) And Wisabella (Fact: Isabella is the 9 month old baby of my friend Jill who is much more pixie than mermaid)and Maddy and Aiden. (sploush) AND Dora. (sploush) And SHE is a REAL lermaid. And this other girl she is a real mermaid. And there is the animals. And then there is this purple woctopus and the woctopus is purple and he has a boat and he has stuff (inflection indicates stuff is bad stuff). And Dora and the real Lermaid and the Boots...Boots is a lermaid too. They don't like the woctopus and that's how I read it.

Fact: At this point I realize she is telling me the plot of a book of Dora saving the ocean from a octopus who litters and pollutes the ocean.

Factual Fiction: And MAMA, lermaids live in the water and they make big splahes (SPLOUSH) and then they spit out the water in their mouths.

Fact: I'm pretty sure the water in their mouths comes from the big sploushing they do. Hmmmm.

Factual Fiction: And the water is COOL. Lermaids have a tail and stuff instead. I LOVE the lermaids.

Fact: To get your three year old off the subject of "lermaids" present them with a cat hoodie towel.

Fictional Facts: Mama! I need that towert. No...a tolel. No a...(a towel Ellie?) Yes! A TOWEL! I neeeeeed the duck towel. Ok alright...I'll be a cat. Meow Meow. Addy will be the duck later...quack quack. I possed to be a cat, please I'm a cat. I neeeeeeed to be a cat. And I'm fine...ok...I neeeeed to put it on. Mama! I need to tell you about cats.