Amnesia

My daughter is crazy.

I guess I should qualify that statement: Either my daughter is crazy or I've completely blanked out her baby-hood and my wife is way more relaxed that I ever suspected.

This realization came at the end our vacation. We'd spent the day at a beach on Lake Erie (yeah, I was surprised too.) snorkeling and playing in the sand. This summer, both our kids became amphibians. My daughter, never to let her brother out-do her has been trying to keep up with him. This has caused no end of gasps and frantic dives across the neighborhood pool as she simply dropped out of the Wal-Mart inner tube. She has her own swimming stroke, which can best be described as a cross between a graceful mermaid gliding effortlessly through the water, a semi-truck hell bent on reaching it's destination and an octopus that has suddenly realized it has 6 more arms than normal creatures and hasn't quite figured out how to make them all work together. Oh yeah, and she spirals while she swims.

We'd tried all week to find a good place to snorkel. My son kept asking and even when the only place we could find was the normal Ohio Lake Erie murky water, he loved it. My daughter proclaimed, “I ta tish!” (I saw fish, if you don't speak snorkel.) She also saw a mermaid, forever silencing all the anti-mermaid critics. (The fact that we were standing in three feet of water and I couldn't see my hand as soon as it was under water shows just how deep the anti-mermaid conspiracy runs)

Well the last day of vacation, we found The Beach. The water was crystal clear, for Ohio. Visibility was an astounding ten feet. Both kids finally really Saw. Our quick stop to check it out turned into several hours and my son dragging first me then my wife out to swim over the coral reef. (To a seven year-old on his first real snorkel, a bunch of seaweed (or whatever it's called in Lake Erie) looks like a coral reef.)

We finally pried them out of the water and de-sanded them and went for a late lunch. As we were eating, my son listed his favorite things from the vacation in order. Between bites, my daughter chimed in also. This isn't what convinced me she is crazy, also though it does support the conclusion. (When she is eating, she is single-minded, just check out the last article.) No, what convinced me was when I checked to see if she was listening. Her consistent “Yes,” to every question lead me to believe she was already asleep and it just hadn't reached her mouth yet. So, I added, “I really liked when we went sky diving.”

The got a little pause as she looked up with a disgusted look on her little face. “We didn't go skydiving this week, daddy,” she said in her daddy-you-are-a-moron-but-I-still-love-you-and-hope-I-didn’t-get-too-many-of-your-genes tone of voice.

Well, at least she was still awake. Then she patted my arm and said, “When I was a baby, we went sky diving. You and me.”

“We did?”

A simple nod put the matter to rest in her eyes.

“What else did we do when you were a baby, that I've forgotten?” (Trust me, I can spin a pretty good yarn, but nothing compared to what she pulled out next...)

“We climbed the Rocky Mountains.”

“Oh?”

Another nod as she dipped a french fry in her ketchup, also known as dippy. (My daughter is the queen of dipping. It doesn't matter what she's eating as long as there's something to dip it in.)

Then she pointed to the tartar sauce for her fish and explained, “This is called 'pretend sand' in Africa.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, not all dippy is pretend sand in Africa.”

“What's not?”

“Ketchup.”

“What about salsa?”

“That's pretend sand.”

“French fries?”

“Gorsh.” The amazing thing, she didn't even pause...

“How about fish?”

“Neenee.”

“And how do you know African?”

Another pat on my shoulder, between bites of gorsh. “When I was a baby, we went there, you and me, daddy.”

Everyone has warned me that when my daughter mutates into a teenager, I am in trouble. They go on and on about how I won't understand her or be able to talk to her. Until this past week, I'd put their comments down to exaggeration. Now, I'm not so sure. On the one hand, she's already speaking a language I don't. On the other hand, apparently I'm a pretty cool dad cause I've already taken her skydiving and mountain climbing and to Africa. (I was afraid to ask why we went to Africa with my wife sitting. After all, she's obviously laid enough back to let me do all these things, but I don't want to push the limits until I've been fully briefed by my daughter on all our antics.)