Owlette
At 83 it's interesting being the primary summoned household playmate for a little girl who just turned four years old.
Her name is Lilly, our months on the run and at the condo in South Walton she hardly ever calmed down but was almost constantly frantic. Evenings she would find me and ask, "Papa, want to play Hide and Seek?" and I would look at her with big eyes and start, "ONE! TWO!" and, looking startled, she would leap into a run toward her hiding place, often under the same chair. At first, "Papa, be a monster" and I would come looking for her, growling and arms dragging the floor. But when she said "Papa, don't be a monster, it scares me" I stopped that altogether, because I like that she likes her great-grandfather, a malleable playmate who generally does what he's told.
Since we've settled into the new house here at Breakfast Point, her personality seems to be mellowing beautifully. I've wondered if the sudden upheaval of life starting last May, her mom and dad moving into Malinda's house after M's brain emergency, and then instant total upside down disaster with hurricane's destruction of the house in October and six of us moving from condo to condo to condo to condo affected her the way it did the rest of us, she's just a little child, it doesn't necessarily occur that all this would bother her the way it did and has us adults, ranging twenty six (Kristen) to thirties (Britany and Ray) to sixty (Malinda) to eighties (Linda and me); but maybe so.
Now, if it's still daytime, it's "Papa, want to come outside and play? It'll be fun" which means we go outside and swing. She likes me to swing her "high" even though she can swing higher by herself by "pumping" the usual way of leaning back and legs stretched out long going forward, and leaning forward and legs tucked under going backward. Swing and then climb the ladder and slide a few times while, breathless from my daily exercise, I hold on to the yellow handles of her new playground set.
After dark it's find me and "Papa, let's play in my room", when I sit in one of the chairs while she cooks supper for me at her little kitchen, or Catboy and Owlette go to school and we have their conversation about what "normally" and "shortly" (she's the only four year old I've known who uses adverbs) happens at her day care school, including sounding through the alphabet, or, as the picture above last evening, "Owlette-the-dinosaur" growling and scaring Papa.
She's a good kid and the delight of many lives, including her two first cousins, boys a bit older who seem to adore her. I'm hoping the mellowing continues - - but not too much, because little girls are created to be a challenge and a puzzle.
T
Her name is Lilly, our months on the run and at the condo in South Walton she hardly ever calmed down but was almost constantly frantic. Evenings she would find me and ask, "Papa, want to play Hide and Seek?" and I would look at her with big eyes and start, "ONE! TWO!" and, looking startled, she would leap into a run toward her hiding place, often under the same chair. At first, "Papa, be a monster" and I would come looking for her, growling and arms dragging the floor. But when she said "Papa, don't be a monster, it scares me" I stopped that altogether, because I like that she likes her great-grandfather, a malleable playmate who generally does what he's told.
Since we've settled into the new house here at Breakfast Point, her personality seems to be mellowing beautifully. I've wondered if the sudden upheaval of life starting last May, her mom and dad moving into Malinda's house after M's brain emergency, and then instant total upside down disaster with hurricane's destruction of the house in October and six of us moving from condo to condo to condo to condo affected her the way it did the rest of us, she's just a little child, it doesn't necessarily occur that all this would bother her the way it did and has us adults, ranging twenty six (Kristen) to thirties (Britany and Ray) to sixty (Malinda) to eighties (Linda and me); but maybe so.
Now, if it's still daytime, it's "Papa, want to come outside and play? It'll be fun" which means we go outside and swing. She likes me to swing her "high" even though she can swing higher by herself by "pumping" the usual way of leaning back and legs stretched out long going forward, and leaning forward and legs tucked under going backward. Swing and then climb the ladder and slide a few times while, breathless from my daily exercise, I hold on to the yellow handles of her new playground set.
After dark it's find me and "Papa, let's play in my room", when I sit in one of the chairs while she cooks supper for me at her little kitchen, or Catboy and Owlette go to school and we have their conversation about what "normally" and "shortly" (she's the only four year old I've known who uses adverbs) happens at her day care school, including sounding through the alphabet, or, as the picture above last evening, "Owlette-the-dinosaur" growling and scaring Papa.
She's a good kid and the delight of many lives, including her two first cousins, boys a bit older who seem to adore her. I'm hoping the mellowing continues - - but not too much, because little girls are created to be a challenge and a puzzle.
T