Alrighty Then
I had a coupon for Build-a-Bear so I decided to indulge the kid. We headed over to the mall and she ran straight into the store. I showed her all of the different empty carcasses and let her choose one. She selected a pink bear with hearts on it. We were going to pass on adding a sound to the bear, but the nice lady had sold my kid a sound before I knew what hit me.
A got to step on the foot pedal and fill the bear up with fluff. She chatted with the lady as she did so, and I listened carefully to make sure she wasn't sold anything else we didn't need. We were not leaving there with a bear on rollerskates and that's all there is to it. Once the pink bear was stuffed and sewn, we proceeded to the washing station, where A "washed" the bear under an airjet.
Finally, we got to the last station: the computer where you get to enter all of your personal information and then choose a name for the bear.
I sat with my fingers poised above the keyboard.
"What's the bear's name?" I asked my daughter.
"Axsha," she said without hesitation.
"No, seriously. What's her name?"
"Mama, it's Axsha."
My brain immediately thought of a dozen ways to spell the name. Achtsha? Acksha? Actia? I finally settled on Axsha and typed it. We then headed to the register, where the birth certificate gets printed.
The cashier pulled the birth certificate off the printer. "Oh, Axsha?" She looked at me. I shrugged.
On our way out we stopped at ShopKo so that I could buy some lightbulbs. The cashier noticed the Build-a-Bear box and asked my daughter the name of the new friend inside. A told her the name. The lady looked at me in puzzlement. "Don't ask," I mouthed to her silently.
Honestly, I don't know if she made it up or heard it somewhere. Or, more likely, misheard something somewhere.
When we got home, she ran to her room to introduce Teddy to Axsha. I was in the office, checking my email.
"Mama, did you take your shoes off?" she shouted.
"Yes, I did!" I shouted back. "Did you have any more questions?"
She came into the room. "Yes, I have more questions."
"Okay, go."
She leaned against Gideon's crate and rested her elbow on the top. "When the moon comes up in the sky, it's bedtime," she stated.
"Right, but that's not a ques-"
"And when the sun comes up in the sky, it's morning time."
"Okay, thanks for letting me know. I need to go let the dogs in."
"But I have more questions!"
Comments
Your daughter is the cutest with her bear!
Noooo, THAT wasn't projection.
She also likes to pretend she's talking in a different language. We go to a Spanish playgroup and we have CDs with children's songs from around the world that she begs me to play over and over. I have Swiss yodelers and African rhythms pounding through my head at times (like now, because I'm writing about it). So odd when the "song that's stuck in my head" isn't even in my native language.
Jen
* denotes animals named by Sydney!