Magic Number: 18

Niranjana has a favorite number. It's 18. Best we can figure, it's based on her birthday. She's counting well past 18 now, up to around 49 with limited assistance, but 18 seems to be her No. 1.

If she needs a random quantity for a story, it'll usually be 18. It's also great for food purposes, like how many edamame (soybeans) she needs to eat before she can be excused (we're pretty sure she ate more than 18, once she got going). Here are some other examples.

• "There were T-Rexes at school. I was fighting them. There were 18 T-Rexes. Then there was an earthquake and they went underground."

• "The babies in my tummy are swimming. There are 18 of them." We're not really sure what this means... and there are no symptoms of indigestion or worms or anything. We figure it's an ongoing reference to the baby girl in Aunt V's tummy, due in late June. So we've been introducing the "birthmother in India" concept. No apparent comprehension. That's another blog item brewing.

• "More strawberries, please." How many? "18!"

• "I got lots of energies to play with Cate and to go outside," she declared in the shower on Saturday morning. "I've got 18 energies."

Someday, she'll be wearing a soccer jersey with the number 18 on it.