Call Her Red

My sweet daughter is one of the funniest and most enjoyable people I know. Lately, she’s been on a roll with her “-isms.” So I just have to share her latest.

Our latest struggle is over lights. She “forgets” to turn them out all the time. We come home to a house ablaze. I try to train but I sound more like a nag. Tonight, a dripping wet redhead walks into my room (I don’t allow shouting from the tub) and asks, very accusingly, “Mom, why is the light on in the laundry room?” Ooops…caught in my own nag!

We’re studying ancient history right now and I overheard an interesting conversation as I passed by her bedroom door. She was playing with her stuffed birds and one was the pharaoh of Egypt, one was the princess of Assyria, and another was Thesus, the King of Athens who killed the Minotaur. They were all sailing on a Phoenician ship to Crete. Glad she’s retaining history-even if she’s creating some of her own!

Red is fascinated by human anatomy. We’re studying the inner workings of the body in science: the endocrine system, the nervous system, etc. She loves to hear about organs and even calls up her Uncle Andy to talk about the latest autopsy he’s worked with. So I was pretty secure in her knowledge until she called me into the bathroom one morning. While flexing her ribcage, she claimed, “Hey, look Mom! I can see my lungs!” Later, she told me she hit her “brain” very hard on the wall. (It was her skull.)

One morning over breakfast, “Mom, you’re wearing black & white pjs and white shoes. You know what else is black & white? Skunks.” Gee, thanks.

Red caught a bad head cold, which doesn’t normally stop her unless she wants to be. While attempting to look her most pitiful, she said, ”I’ll feel better if I have a movie and lay down with my favorite blankie.” Hmmm….playing on my sympathies, you bet! Did it work? Yes…because I felt as miserable as she tried to look!

While looking through old photos with me, Red came across one of my dad taken when I was a baby. She grabbed it and gushed, “He looks just like Hawkeye! He’s so cute!” (Hawkeye Pierce from the TV show, M*A*S*H) She’s a third generation M*A*S*H watcher…I think that was one of the first shows she ever saw! Oh, and she’s right. My dad did look like Hawkeye. And Red has this interesting habit of collecting old photos for her bulletin board. She has a high school graduation photos of her dad, her grandfather, and great-grandfather as well as a dozen photos of birds.

I love that my daughter loves books. We negotiate every night over how many books she can read (beyond the ones we read together) before lights out. In fact, she asked me once when she would have to go to bed in order to get the privilege of 30 books. I told her she’d have to go to bed at noon. She considered it before deciding she could just read in the afternoon after school. So the other night she delighted me when she said, “Mom, I’m ready for wonder, excitement and discovery in reading stories tonight.” This kid…already using the $5 words.

There are many times I wonder what I ever did before I was blessed with Red’s entry into our lives. She certainly brings joy, wonder, and excitement!

For now,

Call her Red…and call me a very blessed mom

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