We keep (and are raising) a three year old here at the Fat Beggars Home for Widows, Orphans, and Sojourners.  Like pretty much all the kids who live (or pass through) here, she struggles to overcome developmental, social, and academic delays.  As such, she does not, as yet, speak in complete sentences – certainly not elaborate ones.  Rarely more than word pairs.  However, she can and does sometimes sing a whole verse or two of a song.

Despite her limitations, she strikes me as very smart.  She is quite expressive.  Even if we must remind her to use her “big words” several times in even short exchanges, she seems to be a modern woman in the making.  She mysteriously conveys the idea that she knows what she wants and how to get it.  (Her secret agent name is Secret Agent Sassafras or “SAS”.)  We are remote learning/home schooling during…