Threehead

Back when she was two, Fiona was madly learning new words. She knew the part of her head above her eyes had a special name with a number. Twohead, was that it? We smiled and told her that yes, she was two, so that must be her twohead.

When she neared three, we asked her if she was going to have a threehead soon. Of course, she said. And against all odds, this little tyke with the immense vocabulary has persisted the whole year in believing that she has a threehead. We find it sweet and endearing. We joke about tenheads, forty-three-heads and seventy-heads.

She's turning four next week, though, and I'm afraid this is it. Soon she will have a fourhead, and no one will know that it's not a forehead, and I suspect that she will never have a fivehead. No matter how hard we hold onto these sweet little-kid things, she'll only be little for so long. Already she seems so grown up in so many ways.