in which the wp blows my mind

Like many mothers of daughters, I sometimes look at my child and think, "Who are you?"

The Warrior Princess - and it should be understood that she is definitely more warrior than princess - could not be more different from me in many respects. The most obvious difference is her complete lack of cookie fancy. I love to wear dresses. The quickest way to piss her off is to try to put her into a dress. I don't really like playing video games; she will probably design one by the time she's ten. I love food - all kinds. She has about ten foods she'll eat. I love novelty and she prefers consistency. Anything I think is a great idea, she immediately rejects. I love meeting people, and she won't look you in the eye when she talks to you. It makes me seriously crazy.


There's only one other person that makes me that crazy. And that's her father. (It's okay. He'd say the same thing about me.)


Because the WP and I are so different in so many ways, I always get a kick out of the weird ways she is like me. You who are parents will get this. Sure, our children get all kinds of physical traits from us (the WP gets a curly mop of hair from me, and her smile from her dad). They sometimes inherit health problems from us, or even temperamental traits. But there are some things they inherit that can't possibly be carried on DNA. Right?


Example: Here is a conversation that Lily and I had the other day when she was getting ready for school.

KMS: (yelling up the stairs) Don't forget to make your bed!

WP: (yelling back down) I won't!

Pause.


WP: (yelling from her room) MOM! I can't make up my bed!

KMS: Why not?

WP: Because it's too jacked up!


Well, who does that sound like.


It's easy enough to explain. When you grow up around a certain sensibility, you're bound to adopt it. So how do you explain the things your kids do...that you did as a kid...that they could have no way of knowing you did?


When I was little, I loved riding in the car with my dad, mainly because he loved to listen to music as much as I did. Also, it was a convertible. Sometimes he would talk to me about whatever it was we were listening to: Kerri. Listen. Hear that backbeat? or Listen to the harmonies on this one. The Beach Boys invented that sound. or You ever heard of the Memphis Horns? Listen, I'm gonna rewind this, and you listen for the horns. He would keep time - the backbeat, naturally - by tapping his finger, the one with the gold wedding band, against the hard steering wheel. (Interestingly enough, in my memory, when I hear that whack-whack-whack now, it's always keeping the beat of the Stones' "Jumping Jack Flash.") But sometimes, I liked for him to turn up the music enough to drown out most of the ambient noise, then I'd turn away from him, look out the window, and forget there was anyone or anything else in the world than me and my daydream and what I could see out the window.


I was driving the WP home from school one day when I noticed it.


We had music on - I never drive anywhere that I don't have music on, to this day - and I was asking her about her day at school.


How was school, sweetie?


Nothing.


Hey, boo boo. Didn't you have library today? What'd you check out?


Total silence.


Sweetie? Are you okay?


After a beat, she spoke the first words since she got in the car.


Mom? Can you turn up the radio please?


Sure, baby, I said absently, turning it up. And I glanced in the rear view mirror. That's when I noticed it. She was turned almost completely sideways in her seat, staring out the window.

Now if she ever goes streaking up the street wearing nothing but an oatmeal box tied around her neck with a piece of yarn, I'll be really freaked out. Although I think if that were going to happen, it'd have happened by now, because I was two when I did it.

Maybe she'll do it in college.

Great. Now I can't sleep.