lipped
past, and after the advent of Poppsy and Pee-Wee the entries seem a
bit hurried and often incoherent. But I have dutifully noted how my
Dinkie first said "Ah goom" for "All gone," just as I have fondly
remarked his persistent use of the reiterative intensive, with careful
citations of his "da-da" and his "choo-choo car," and a "bow-wow" as
applied to any living animal, and "wa-wa" for water, and "me-me" for
milk, and "din-din" for dinner, and going "bye-bye" for going to sleep
on his little "tum-tum." I even solemnly ask, forgetting my Max
Mueller, what lies at the root of this strange reduplicative process.
Then I come to where I have set down for future generations the
momentous fact that my Dinkie first said "let's playtend" for "let's
pretend," and spoke of "nasturtiums" as "excursions," and announced
that he could bark loud enough to make Baby Poppsy's eyes "bug out"
instead of "bulge out." And I come again to where I have
affectionately registered the fact that my son says "set-sun" for
"sunset" and speaks of his "rumpers" instead of his "rompers," and
coins the very appropriate word "downer" to go with its sister word of
"upper" and describes his Mummy as "_wearing_ Daddy's coffee-cup" when
he really meant _using_ Daddy's coffee-cup.

It all seems very fond and foolish now, just as at one time it all
seemed very big and wonderful. And I remember schooling my Poppsy to
say "Daddy's all sweet" and how her little tongue, stumbling over the
sibilant, converted it into the non-complimentary "Daddy's all feet,"
which my Dinky-Dunk so scowlingly resented. And I have even compiled a
list of Dinkie's earliest "howlers," from the time he was first
interested in Adam and Eve and asked to be told about "The Garden of
Sweden" until he later explained one of Poppsy's crying-spells by
announcing she had dug a hole out by the corral and wanted to bring it
into the house. I used to smile a bit skeptically over these
tongue-twists of children, but now I know they are re-born with each
new generation, the same old turns of thought and the same old kinks
of utterance. I don't know why, but there is even a touch of sadness
about the old jokes now. The patina of time gathers upon them and
mellows them and makes me realize they belong to the past--the past
with its pain and its joy, that can never come back to mortal mothers
again.

_Monday the Thirtieth_

"We die a little, when we go away." How true it is! By to-mor