"Tank you dod!"

Today Ella and I were out in the backyard when she surprised me with yet another development. She wanted to play with her kitchen set and I sat down at the table to read. She quickly lost interest in the kitchen, and I soon found her seated beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that she had her head bowed and her hands clasped together. Then I heard her speak quietly, "Tank you dod famee!" Now, since I am with her all day long, my skills at Ella-to-English translation are unsurpassed, and I usually am able to place her words into a context. It took me but a few seconds to realize that she was "praying" a little prayer from a BOZ DVD. (BOZ is a computer-animated Christian DVD series in which "Boz" is a green bear who lives in a treehouse next door to a family with young twins. In each episode, the twins say a prayer at the end of their day of fun with Boz. The prayer goes like this -- "Thank you God as this day ends, for my family and my friends..." Today made me realize that Ella is starting to memorize this prayer! At dinner tonight, we asked her to pray, and she held our hands and said in the tiniest whisper, "Tank you Dod".