You'll be a woman

'Let me tell you something,' Cleo likes to say, before launching into a narrative. Well, let me tell you something: when she woke up from an (increasingly rare) nap today, she immediately:

1. Wondered why we hadn't seen the Mad Scientist float in the Kinetic Sculpture race a few hours earlier - because, she said, she once had a science experiment kit and so that is her favorite entry;

2. Noted (to her father's relief) that she had not had an accident while sleeping;

3. Commented on how she is becoming a woman. It may take, she later clarified, until around 35, but she is confident that the change is underway.

Just over twenty years ago, Quentin Tarantino shed a bright light on a band called Urge Overkill by featuring a song of theirs in a memorable scene starring Uma Thurman and John Travolta. The song's opening line? 'Girl, you'll be a woman soon.'

But not so soon, Cleo. Happily, there's still a ways to go, in several respects. Sure, largely made your own breakfast this morning. You dressed yourself. And, yes, you tartly pointed out that Mom and I weren't exactly eating in a queen- and kinglike manner at various points during dinner. But as long you cannot quite wipe yourself, and as long as you still pronounce the plural of test as test-es, and as long as each bowl of ice cream leaves an emphatic chocolate mustache above your lip - well, you've still got a little ways to go. Which is, frankly, fine by us.