Friday, April 22, 2011

Little Miss Smartypants

My amazing two year old daughter Rose, who at this moment is tossing and turning and crying in her sleep, continues to surprise me on a daily basis.  Yesterday she took the paper Burger King crown that she had been wearing for several hours off of her head and placed it on me.  I said, "Oh, I'm a princess," in a probably disturbing falsetto.  She furled her brow and said, "No Daddy, you're not a princess, you're a king."  I said, "So you're the princess?"  And she replied, "I'm not a princess, I'm Rose."  With a look of compassion for my apparent stupidity.  None the less, she IS my princess.

A couple of days earlier, Rose came into the bathroom while I was shaving and told me that she wanted to ask me a question.  To be clear about what she had just said, I turned the water off and knelt down and asked her to repeat herself.  She said, "I want to ask you a question."

I said, "OK, ask me your question."

Rose proceeded to pull up her little pink bathroom stool and sat down on it.  With her favorite dolly tucked under her arm and a very serious look on her face she said, "Your name is Daddy?"

"Is that your question?"  I asked.

"Yes."

"Well, you call me Daddy and Bubba and Emily call me Daddy because I am your father.  But Mommy calls me Dana because that is my name too.  So I have two names, Daddy..and Dana."

"So...you're Daddy?"

"Yes Rose, I'm Daddy."

"Oh, okay."

"Does that answer you question?"

"Yes," she said and got up from her stool and walked out of the room.

Sometimes I'm afraid that this kid is so smart that she'll make the old man here look like a blithering idiot.