Is it being three, or is it being Helen? This is a story that really should have photo illustrations, but like all the best stories, they happen before a camera can be procured.
I had just gotten home from work and was ready to put on some "mommy" clothes. While stripping work clothes, I was keeping up a conversation with Helen. I usually do this, just so I can keep tabs on where she is and what she is up to.
"Helen, what do you think I should put on today?" [For the record, rhetorical questions are a terrible idea with a 3-year-old. Since I already knew what I wanted to wear, I was just asking for trouble.]
"Nothing," Helen replied, matter-of-factly but in a tone that tolerated no argument.
"Hmm...then how can I leave the house after lunch to go to the store and buy groceries?" I asked, thinking I had an airtight case. But Helen was not to be so easily cowed.
"Let me think..." she offered, playing for time.
Since I was getting cold, I wasn't sure how long I could wait on the whims of a 3-year-old. "Umm, I think I will just put my jeans on."
"No!" Helen shrieked, alarmed. "Let me think!" She sat down on the edge of my bed, head bowed and face covered by both hands. "Quiet, please..." she muttered at me in an irritated tone. I didn't realize it then, but she was still hard at work on my question - how to put nothing on, and yet get to the store to buy groceries.
After a pause long enough to leave me shivering, she looked up. "I've got it! Dad will make the house fly!"
Umm...huh? "Okay, how will he do that?"
"He can put feathers on it!" (Duh!)
While I spent the next few minutes figuring out that a flying house was her solution to get to the store without leaving the house, she started nagging..."When (oh when!) will Daddy get to the feather store?"
There is nothing quite like the literal mind of a 3-year-old. Or is it Helen?
Last weekend, I asked if her Dad had been to the Feather Store yet. She said that no, Mom had put on clothes instead. She agree that that worked too, and was simpler.
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