An M and E Post


When my niece E was quite little, she was fascinated with a book at my mother’s
house on Louis Pasteur that Mom’s husband had from his days as a teacher. It referred to germs as “the invisible enemies” but E kept calling them “the invisible anemones” — not realizing, of course, either her mistake or the fact that there were actually such things as anemones.

E and her younger sister M are older now, eight and six respectively, yet still delighted by books and still coming out with terribly funny things.

“Let’s pretend we are in the olden days,” my sister J overheard E saying to M recently. “Pretend it is 1980!” (“And no,” J added, “she did not mean 1880; I asked.”)

“E was telling me a story about a friend,” J shared in the same message. “I thought it sounded like the girl was being bossy, to which [E] said ‘No, Mom. She’s not bossy. She’s just the boss of the meeting, like Fred in Scooby-Doo.’”

Here’s one more exchange from a year ago, when I started logging this stuff to share
on the blog with J’s permission. J has just told the kids that she’ll be leaving them with the neighbors after they fall asleep so that she can pick up Mom-Mom, our mother, at the airport.

E:Yeah!!! They are going to pretend to be our parents!”

M: “What happens if I get a charlie horse? Will [K] hug me like she is my mom?”

J: “Girls, I will be gone for a maximum of 15 minutes. You will be asleep the whole
time, you won’t even know I am gone, and I am always your mother.”



Related: What I Said E Mail I before Zzzzz

1 comment:

  1. I'll never forget the day one of my girls went on a little existential Daddy tear (I'm not sure why it didn't happen with Mommy). "Are all daddys everyone's Daddy?" No, it's just that most little boys and girls call their daddys the same thing. "Why?" Um... "Is it like Mommys and Nanas and Barbies?" Yes! Sure. It's exactly like that. "Are you always going to be my Daddy?" Sweetheart, absolutely I will.

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