By My Calculations

Dinner's not over yet - boys lingering over sausage and corn, seconds of potatoes gone, hesitant to eat anything that has even the slightest browning from the handicapped pan.  (Don't they know the crunchy bits are the best?)  Noa's plate - licked clean.  (She knows!)  So hard to be patient.  She slips off her chair.  Eyes us.  Will she be in trouble?

"Whatcha doing, Noa?"

She just shrugs.  Smiles.  Takes a few steps back.  A few big breaths - preparing.

"Weady?....Weady...?...Go!"  And she's off.  To the door.  All the way back past the table and into the living room.  Back to the door.  Giggles high pitched and contagious.  Wobbly turns to miss the pots hanging, the edge of the piano, the coffee table.  And she's yelling.  Yelling and squealing and laughing and we're distracted from cleaning our own plates.  She's yelling the same thing over and over again.  We can't understand because of the pitch and the giggles but we're laughing so she figures she's being funny and keeps on yelling the indecipherable chant.  Yelling and laughing and running.  Back and forth.

This goes on until the dessert is presented.  They always stop for ice cream.  She digs her spoon into her bowl of Hokey Pokey.

"What were you yelling, Noa?  What were you saying over and over when you were running?"
She speaks around her ice cream.  "By my cow-qu-way-shuns I must wun!"

"By my calculations, I must run?"

"Yeah!  Dat's what I sayd!" Going about her business like that's a normal three-year-old thing to say.  But we can tell she's pleased with herself, grinning over her bowl, as we keep repeating it - a little dumbfounded - she made a joke and we all got it.  Absolutely brilliant!