I can’t believe that I haven’t mentioned before how enamoured Reid is of bubbles produced by people with chewing gum but Google tells me that I haven’t. In Reid’s life, Aunt Karin is the main bubble blower but Reid observes carefully, waiting for her turn. Reid rarely has the opportunity to chew gum, mostly because she is still a 2 chews, then swallow kind of girl.

On [1] Halloween, while sampling the loot in her trick or treat bag, Reid got some gum in her mouth and chewed enthusiastically. Then, with a look of intense concentration on her face, Reid spit her gum at her Dad. Whoot! I could hear the force of the spit from where I sat. Ken was more than a little surprised and asked, “What are you doing?!” To which Reid replied, with her own surprise coloured by disappointment, “Trying to blow bubbles.” I told her that I thought she needed to be older to blow bubbles. She proposed 4 as the right age but I suggested it might be 5 or 6, practically an eternity for Reid.

Last night, Aunt Karin was blowing bubbles with specially-purchased bubble-blowing gum. Reid climbed onto her lap and sat facing Aunt Karin, watching closely. Reid called for a “hugandous” bubble, or at least one that was “hunormous”. Aunt Karin mentioned that Reid had earlier asked for a bubble that was “giandous” as well. We all laughed but then settled on “ginormous” as an appropriate neologism since it seems to have a pretty good chance of making it into everyday use, even the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary.