As we settled onto her bed, she pointed to the book she'd selected and asked, "Is this your favorite story, Mommy?"
"No, it's not my favorite," I answered honestly.
Sydney looked stunned. She pointed to Dora's World Adventure. "Is this your favorite story?"
"No," I answered again.
"Do you like Diego?" she asked, clearly searching for common ground.
"I like Dora and Diego," I said. "They're just not my favorite."
Either that answer satisfied her, or she just wanted to get going with the bedtime story, because she turned her attention back to Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom.
Because it was late, and because I really am quite sick of the story, I attempted to speed things along by paraphrasing and abbreviating. We were several pages into it when Sydney interrupted me, "No, Mom. That's not how it goes.""What?" I asked.
She corrected me, "It says, 'Once upon a time a mean Octopus dumped garbage all over the Mermaid Kingdom. Luckily, a mermaid named Mariana found a magic crown so she could wish all the garbage away.'"
My turn to look stunned! She had just recited almost perfectly one of the longer pages word-for-word.
I told her she was exactly right, and proceeded to read the story much more carefully. Every so often, I'd pause to see if she could finish the rest of the sentence. Note to self: the next time you read the story, which will probably be tonight, wait until after page 12 to start paraphrasing. She doesn't have it quite memorized that far back.
Another note: come Christmas program time, if she's okay standing in front of crowds, I have no doubt she could memorize a line or two.
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