Six Going on Thirty-Six

I'm driving Annie to catechism last night in Jason's Audi when we pass a white Subaru just like the one I usually drive, which causes Annie to begin asking a series of questions about which car is "mine" and which is Jason's and how this was decided.

"When I'm a grown-up, I'm going to drive a mini-van!" she says firmly.  This immediately reminds me of our conversation at tea in Chicago a couple weeks ago, the one where I asked what she wanted to be when she grew up and she responded without hesitation, "I want to have five kids.  No, seven!"  (At least  she's chosen the correct transportation for her large brood.)

She edges towards six-and-a-half and I watch in disbelief.  She says, "That's easy-peasy lemon-squeezy mac-and-cheesy" when she finishes her math homework.  She flounces out of the house wearing leopard-print leggings, a yellow t-shirt with an embroidered peace sign, a tan hoodie sweater with hot pink polka-dots, and purple socks.  She eats adult-sized portions of mahi-mahi but declares that brown rice "creeps me out."  She is fascinated by the girl in her class who just got a pink streak put in her hair, by tornadoes and tsunamis, by The Boxcar Children's parent-free adventures, which I catch her reading with a flashlight after lights-out at night.  She puts away all her own laundry (though she mutters, "Darn it!" under her breath when I tell her that it's waiting in her room).

She has one legitimately wiggly tooth.  I see her stick her pointer finger in her mouth, press down on the tooth, and push it firmly back and forth, a little looser each day, a little closer to the telltale gap-toothed smile that screams Big Kid to the rest of the world.

Jason watches her watch her tooth in the mirror.  "I don't want you to lose your baby teeth!" he says.

She makes a face, half amusement, half pity.  "Daaaaaaad, I have to!  I'm growing up.  That's what kids do," she says, and runs off to write who-knows-what in the secret journal she keeps in her nightstand drawer.