Chatterbox

She walks up to me with our phone in her hands. She looks at it distastefully and said, "Mom? Where is Dad's Blackberry? I need to call G (my mother)!" She knows how to read, therefore, she knows how to make calls from Josh's Blackberry on her own. The jumble of numbers on our home phone mean very little to her and she looks at it as it is beneath her. What sort of phone only has numbers?

Josh is sick with a migraine. I tell her, "I don't know, K. Daddy probably has it in the bedroom with him, but he's sick. I can help you call G on this phone, though."

She ponders, letting me know it is a bit of an inconvenience, needing help to use such an archaic piece of equipment, but she agrees.

She marches through the house with the phone, chattering away. She tells knock-knock jokes, both the standard ones (Why did the chicken cross the road?) and those of her own creation (Why did the throw up go in there? Because it wanted to be in the bucket! Art imitating life.) She talks to my mom and then to my dad, back and forth between the two of them for at least a half an hour. She points at things, "Oh! See that? What do you think of that?" unaware that they can't see what she sees.

I follow her into her room to watch her talk and I see the phone sitting on her little table. I pick it up, to make sure my parents are still on the line and haven't been forgotten. KayTar screams. "No Mom! Don't take it! G is waiting for me to put on my Snow White dress so she can tell me how (falsetto voice) BEAUTIFUL I am. Put that phone DOWN! Please go to the living room now." I oblige and listen from outside. "Okay, okay. Hold on, G. I have to find my shoes. Oops, I need to find my crown and wand. Okay, okay, okay. How do I look?" She giggles with delight, pleased with my mom's answer.

Once she is done with the fashion show, she comes back into the living room, still in full princess regalia, and continues to jabber and tell jokes. I hear my mom through the phone after a rare patch of silence, "Go ahead and give the phone to your mom." KayTar says, "No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Just one more joke. Just one more and one more and one more joke." After what seems like an endless round of jokes, she relinquishes the phone and flutters away to play with her brother. I'm left in her wake, marveling at the sheer delight of her, so little and so big all at once.