Zo? put on her sunglasses after dinner and said, “Come on, DaDa, let’s go see the animals.”
“What animals?” I asked.
“Pretend,” she said.
We had gone to the zoo this weekend at her insistence; now she wanted to repeat the trip in her imagination. So I put on the sunglasses she handed me (a pair Paula had bought at a thrift store for Jonah’s Elvis costume for school -that’s another story), and she took my hand and led me through the living room.
Jonah’s stocking cap was lying on the floor in the foyer. “Look, an animal,” said Zo?, pointing to the hat.
“What kind of animal?” I asked as she picked it up between thumb and forefinger.
“A giraffe,” she said. “A mamma giraffe.”

Zoe is just over 25 months old, and she blows me away every day.