The Mau-Mau's Morning

Small children learning to speak: you gotta love the workarounds they put in place to cover their occasional lack of vocabulary.

This morning, the Mau-Mau awoke with a bellyache. She was the very picture of misery. I came downstairs to find her on the couch, being queried by The Mum.

"Are you all right?"

"No. Got a tummy ache."

"Do you feel sick?"

"It's all melting and dripping down to the floor."

(Pause. The Mum looks at me. I look at her. Is this Mau-Mau code for an Incipient Brown Disaster?)

"You mean your tummy?"

"No." The Mau-Mau points to her face, all streaked with tears, just as one clear drip falls off the end of her nose. "My water."

Aha.

We tried not to giggle too much at that one.

Best guess as to the belly-ache remains hunger: she promptly scarfed up three slices of toast thickly spread with fresh avocado. It's also possible she was regretting the three-quarters of a home-made pepperoni pizza that she gutsed last night. Hopefully it's not an incipient tummy-bug, though... not sure I could take that much melting and dripping water.