An amount

 

This afternoon Phoebe was recounting our trip to campus...

"Yesterday our whole entire family went to Mommy's campus and there we saw an amount of bugs!"

These "red-shouldered bugs" (Jadera haematoloma) are all over the sidewalks outside of my building and Phoebe had a wonderful time picking them up and playing with them. They're perfectly harmless (they eat the seeds of the bushes, not the bushes themselves, they don't bite or sting or anything, etc.) but there certainly is an amount of them.

Andrew explained to her that she couldn't just say "an amount" (at least not typically). She'd have to qualify that with something like "small" or "large" to make it make sense, especially if she wanted to emphasize the amount (as she clearly did with her inflection). 

"We saw a large amount of bugs!" she clarified. 

"What else did you see on campus?" I asked her.

"I don't know!" she said. 

"Did you see any...dumpsters?"

"Yes!" she said. "As we were going to campus to get to the place where Dad did his work we saw dumpsters!"

Andrew and I both gave each other a look that said "colour me impressed."

And "as we" construction?! That's complicated. 

She's been pulling up all sorts of information lately that has been flooring people. 

Just this afternoon we went on a little walk ("Can we go past the burned-out house?") and I shifted the sunshade of the umbrella...and then shifted it back...and in the meantime Phoebe had stuck her fingers in a little opening that developed when I moved the sunshade and so I ended up squishing her poor little fingers.

"Hey!" she said, yanking the sunshade back to where it was so she could take her fingers out. "You squished my fingers!"

"Oh, dear!" I said. "I'm sorry—are you okay?"

"Yes," she said. "It's alright. They're not bleeding."

Then she swiveled her attention to stare daggers at Rachel. 

"Not like the time when you squished my fingers, Rachel!"

"What?!" Rachel shrieked.

"Yeah!" Phoebe said. "They were bleeding then!"

"When I squished your fingers in the fridge?! That was months ago!! How do you remember that?"

"I just do!"

I think it's safe to say her infantile amnesia is wearing off...