“Actually …” she says.

Cate’s been talking for a long time. She’s observant. She’s funny. And she’s very into details.

Yet my 4-year-old daughter seems even more grown up lately with her stories. She says “actually” and sounds more grown up each time. She remembers things I didn’t even realize she heard or saw. Often the conversations are drawn out, thanks to the details, and really close to the other person’s face.

She was telling cousin Ethne a story about wearing a purple tank top and purple “spinner” {aka “skirt”} earlier in the day but then spilling milk on it. So she picked out a second purple outfit. And don’t forget the cowgirl hat.

This week featured some Cate comments I’m thinking could be classics. I was loading the kids into the van to go meet Gran-Gran for lunch when Cate asked where we were going to eat. I told her Quizno’s and then she consulted her Dora map and told me how to get there. Instructions included “Go by the tree.”

Another day we were getting ready to run some errands {something about the van must inspire my girl} when she was looking at a small book we’d gotten at Christmastime when we went to the Live Nativity. She pointed to a picture of a town and said, “Is this Jerusalem?”

See, a detail I had no idea she’d ever retained.

I looked at the words in the book and said, “That’s actually Galilee.”

Then she says, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” Indeed he was.

And then she asked me to turn up the song on the radio. Just a momentary break in the ongoing conversations we have.

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