From the Paris Review’s famous interview of E. B. White, 1969:

Some writers for children deliberately avoid using words they think a child doesn’t know. This emasculates the prose and, I suspect, bores the reader. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention. I’m lucky again: my own vocabulary is small, compared to most writers, and I tend to use the short words. So it’s no problem for me to write for children. We have a lot in common.

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If you ask Ess to say “snake” she’ll say “tank”. She usually drops the sibilant “S” sound at the beginning of words; if we really try to get her to say it, she’ll go with the “sh” phoneme.

If you ask her to say “Sammy the Snake” you get “Hammy the Tank”.

Also, she put six wooden people in her diaper and when Mykala asked what was going on, Ess was very honest: “…some people in there.” The people got a thorough cleaning and a few days off on the countertop. No further uses of diaper-as-pockets have been observed. Maybe a Bill Cunningham-esque French workman’s jackets — the kind with all the pockets — would be good for Ess. Lots to carry as a toddler.

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The Most Beautiful Shots in The History of Disney is, of course, filled with plenty of amazing scenes of animation. But the music, my god, hook up some headphones and behold Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Flight from the City.

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“Hey Essie, can you come sit on my lap to read the book?”
“No, I have to see it from far away.”

“Essie, what color is Dada’s hair?”
“Brown, like a moose!”

“Essie, tell Monkey Marge to say goodnight to Dada.”
“Goodnight, Dada. … ooh ooh aah aah.”

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How many birds are in that pear tree?

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Very tired after a long Christmas Day. Notice Essie’s blue and pink toothbrushes. They are her friends, she shows them things, and their names are “Bluey” and “Pink Toothbrush”.

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