Monday, December 17, 2007

My kid's weirder than yours

Kids have this knack for really embarrassing their parents. Just by being themselves.

Since she was big enough to walk and talk Unruly has had an unbelievable imagination. She comes up with incredible stories and acts them out and often requires me to play some obscure role in her make-believe world. For years she was a lioness and played that role to the fullest complete with growling, yowling, pouncing and insisting she eat her meals off the floor. Because lions don't know how to use silverware or sit in a chair, of course.

She's morphed from lion to werewolf. When the moon is full, she warns, none of us should go outside because "I don't want to accidentally eat you, mom. You know how werewolves are."

Last week she shared with her entire Brownie troop that she was a werewolf. And went into excruciating detail about what she does, and what she eats, when she's in this alternate form on full-moon nights. She runs faster than the wind and often has to avoid werewolf traps that use fresh, raw meat as bait. Sometimes she finds herself outside of her friends' homes and has to remind herself not to eat them because they are her friends. You don't have friends for dinner, she reminds.

On full moon nights she has this weird aversion to anything silver. I give her credit for playing this particular role to its fullest. Some mornings she claims to not want breakfast because she's "still full from last night's werewolf meal. I ate a dairy cow."

Nice.

When I arrived to pick her up from the Brownie meeting I was assaulted by all these little girls, wanting to know if Unruly was "really" a werewolf. And I endured sympathetic, somewhat horrified, looks from the troop leaders. Oh, the agony!

This is where I refuse to admit she's ever maybe seen a werewolf movie. I'd never expose her to "An American Werewolf in London" or any bad B-movies involving werewolves. That would be bad parenting.

We had a nice long chat about make-believe and werewolves on the way home from her meeting. I reminded her that it's okay to pretend to be a werewolf...at home. No one else needs to know about her imagined nocturnal activities.

Werewolves aren't real, anyway, I reminded.

"You don't know they're not real," she admonished in her best grown-up voice. "You've never seen one. Just because you haven't seen one doesn't make it not real. People believe in God and the Goddess and no one has seen them. If you don't believe in them, then they aren't really real. But if you believe in them, then they are real."

Ummm....I couldn't really argue with that explanation.

So I muttered, under my breath "Yeah, but werewolves aren't real."

And she glared at me.

12 comments:

MP said...

What..and Santa, Big Foot...Loch Ness Monster..are they not real either...JEZZO PEEZO...you are such a Debbie Downer...
:-) LOL

robkroese said...

That is so awesome. My daughter hasn't taken any of her fantasies quite to that extreme, although the other day she was telling us about the magical land that exists in her "noggin."

Wendy said...

Unruly makes a strong argument!! Good for her (and bad for you....)!

Anonymous said...

That child cracks me up! I am so glad she is your daughter....*big fat smile*

Lisa said...

I had to laugh at your title. I wrote a post last week with that same title. (My son put a giant pixie stick in the crack of his ass and proclaimed it to be his tail.)

Its like our children are soul mates er something. heehee.

Nancy R said...

I know exactly what she's talking about - I feel the same way after I've eaten an entire dairy cow. BURRRRRP!

Unknown said...

Uh ... you know, in the movies it's always the doubting parent who gets eaten first.

Just reminding you.

Sona said...

How odd. My daughter just went through a werewolf phase too. Not to that extent, but still.

Must be something in the air.

Dapoppins said...

Yes, I will say it. Your child is more creative than mine. What a writer she is going to make someday!

Thanks for the Blog visit!

Slackermommy said...

I can't stop laughing at Dorky dad's comment. He's got a point.

Anonymous said...

YES THEY ARE REAL! I know for a fact. Don't tell anyone, but I'm one too.I'm not afraid to admit to it. At least she has control over who she eats. UNCLE DAVID

Joeprah said...

Quite the philosopher that one. I used to wear a werewolf mask when I was a teenager and terrorize little kids in my neighborhood, they believed.