We were following a favorite ritual, the grandprincess and I, making French toast for breakfast, still in our PJs after her solo spend-the-night visit.

“Actually,” as she is very fond of saying, she was making French toast and I was “helping.”

Standing on a sturdy little stool, the better to reach the kitchen counter, she cracked the eggs herself, tapping tentatively at first, then boldly.

“I did it!” she exclaimed proudly, egg whites streaming across her 5-year-old fingers.

I suppressed a smile and asked, “What’s next?”

“The milk,” she said, remembering. “And we need some butter.”

She pronounced it “budder,” and I didn’t correct her. “Actually,” her drawling “budder” just about melted my heart.

It’s one of the oddities of child-rearing. We can’t wait for little ones to learn to talk, but as soon as they do, we miss the charming mispronunciations and word scrambles they come up with when they are learning.

I hated it when my girlchild finally started saying “raisins” instead of “rennies.” And when the boychild, at long last, said “ball” instead of “bawh.”

I’m proud - and impressed - when the grandtwins use words like “diagonal” and “interfere” correctly. But I long for the days when they said “My see it!” and “My wuv you!” And, oh, to revisit the moment when one admired my flowers and asked if he could water the “dragonsnappers.”

The grandprincess, thankfully, still has those moments, though not as many as she did a while ago. In Tatumspeak, animals are still “aminals” and Cinderella is “Cinnawella.”

Not long ago, she went to a movie and described it in these words: “It was really good, and it was called ‘Un-stickable me.’”

It would have been despicable of me to correct her.

Nor was I tempted to straighten her out when she asked for “suhwup” for her just-made French toast. Or when she asked to get books at the “liberwary.” Or when she wanted to play make-believe and said, “Let’s tend you are a butterfly, and I am your sister.”

In the last few months, she has learned to ride a bike, do a cannonball and use a computer.

She can put her strawberry blonde curls in a little ponytail all by herself and change her clothes a dozen times a day without any help.

If I wanted to, I couldn’t stop her from growing up.

Still, as long as she loves her stuffed “aminals” and likes to dress like Cinnawella, I will let her. And be thankful.

Each precious goof is a priceless reminder that she’s still a little girl.

If only for a “whittle while.”

Andrea Lovejoy is former editor of LaGrange Daily News.