GONE.

In the past 48 hours, Lily has suddenly figured out that "All gone!" is not a phrase that is limited to whether or not she is finished with her meal. She now comprehends that the word 'gone' can also mean that something has disappeared. This is a grave discovery.

Last night, we went thrift store shopping and wound up with a new stuffed animal - a giant pig (my kid has a thing for pigs and ducks - just run with it). Anyway, she has some jammies with pigs on them as well, and I thought she'd get a kick out of wearing them while snuggling her new toy. Well, due to our rather haphazard method of doing laundry, I managed to find the top, but not the bottoms.

I asked Lily to help me find her pants. We wandered around our house for a couple minutes with Lily repeating, "Where aaaaaaaaare you?" over and over. After about five minutes, she stopped in her tracks, turned to me, held her hands out in front of her, widened her eyes, and said in her most serious voice, "GONE."

I snickered and looked at her. "No, Lily, they're not gone. They're just hiding. We'll find them."

"GONE."

She was just so serious. Brian said she continued using the word today. If she turned around and couldn't find a toy, she'd immediately turn to Brian.

"GONE."

To counter this, Lily also learned another word, as we discovered early this morning. She opted to wake us up at 4:30 today and farted. Loudly. She then looked directly at me, giggled, and said, "Toot." My grandfather would be proud. Fart humor is a mainstay in my family, and evidently the tradition lives on.