Happy Birthday to Geneva! She’s been announcing her birthday all week to friends and strangers alike. They obligingly ask how old she is, a question that until today has perplexed her because she was really two but thinking ahead a few days to when she would be three. So she would pick a number out of the air, trying it on for size. “Five,” she’d answer boldly, hand outstretched for emphasis. And then, hesitantly, “Am I five, Mommy?”
Sometimes the birthday announcement is followed by a command: “Look at me! Hey!” (The “hey” is only employed if the intended audience member fails to understand his or her role.) Then she launches into a selection of songs, most commonly a medley of “Joy to the World” and “Angels We Have Heard on High,” with some of the trickier words hummed.
That’s Geneva, charming us all with her 50,000 words a day…listeners for life. Happy Birthday, Gigi!
