Wuv, Twue Wuv

Although actually, Margaret’s pronunciation is somewhat better than The Princess Bride’s Impressive Clergyman.

Not much better, but a little bit.

Anyway, this morning, Margaret said she loved me for the first time.  We have a little litany of people that get tacked on the end of Goodnight Moon as part of the ritual.  It goes “Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.  Goodnight Margaret.  Mommy loves you.  Daddy loves you.  Ellie loves you.*  Nana loves you.  Frank loves you.  Grandma loves you.  Granddad loves you.  Uncle Ron loves you.  Uncle Pat loves you.  Aunt Helen loves you.  Uncle Bruce loves you.”**  And at this point, I’m usually nearly out the door, so I trail off.

So she’s got the concept of love, I think.  I also say “Mommy loves you” when I hug her. 

Back to the story.

She said “Margaret loves Mommy” to me this morning, and I melted into a puddle of gooey smileyness.  I mean, she said that she loved me.  And it was unprompted.  It just came out of nowhere, as I sat down at the table with her. And I was very happy.

And then she followed it up with “Mommy banana bread?”  You see, we had two slices of banana bread – she loves banana bread – and I had given hers to her for breakfast while I fed Ellie.  And she had scarfed it down.***  When I finished feeding Ellie, I went to the table to eat the remaining banana bread – my banana bread – and she told me she loved me, and then asked for some of my banana bread.

Which she got.  Because I do love her.  And love means never getting banana bread, apparently.

Smug little kidlet.  But sweet.  Like banana bread.  That I didn’t get to eat.  Humph.

*I’m sure she does on some level, not yet realized.

**If anyone feels that they should be on this list and isn’t, I would like to make it clear that inclusion on the list has to do with a combination of factors, including relationship to Margaret, whether she knows who you are, and the amount of time that it takes me to walk from Margaret’s bed to the door.  That said, she frequently adds “Eea wub me” to the list, because Lea, she has decided that you love her.

*** The pronoun is ambiguous, but it pertains to either daughter, so I’m just going to leave it.