One morning, Scooby was humming to herself at the kitchen table, flipping through my "Country Living" magazine."Ooo, isn't she PRETTY!" she suddenly cooed.
"Eh?" I grunted, hunched over my first cup of coffee like a Lion over a Wildebeest.
She thrust the magazine towards me, to show me an All-American Girl with Big American Teeth in some sort of tunic demonstrating the wonders of some sort of woodstove.
I decided not to launch into some Crazed Anti-Patriarchal rant, and just be cool with the fact that my four year old, sheltered from mass media and possessed of a Tomboy Mother, was passing aesthetic judgment on strangers. I chose humour.
"Yes, yes, very pretty." I said calmly, groping around for the coffee thing full of more coffee. "Not as pretty as me, obviously, but still pretty, yes, yes."
Scooby looked up from the magazine and let her gaze wander over my mismatched pajamas, my giant ponytail and the piece of Baby Man's toast that was stuck to my elbow for some reason.
"You're not pretty today." She announced with finality.
"Today?" I asked, with mock horror, "so I HAVE been pretty before?"
"Oh yes." she said, turning back to her study of bathroom renovation in the Art Nouveau style.
We sat in silence for a bit, as I pondered whether a military boarding school was really entirely out of the question.
"Don't worry though," she said matter-of-factly, "you are Beautiful."
I tried not to choke with surprise.
"What's the difference?"
"Pretty is on the top," she said.
Smart, smart, beautiful child.
HW
1 comments:
LOVE this. What a wise little girl you have.
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