Until she entered the Barbie phase, my daughter Chrissy was strictly a teddy bear person. No dolls for her. Big Bear and Little Bear were it. And they lived the good life. Chrissy stole her brother Nathan's diapers for them, she nursed them, and, much to my chagrin, she insisted on carefully seat belting each bear into his seat every time we got in the car. Big Bear even had a pack of crayons that was his pancreas that stopped working when he came down with diabetes like her.
This week Adella became enamored of two bears at my house. Is her discovery Nature--a genetic link to Chrissy? Or Nurture--toys found at loving Granma's house? Or sheer cousin rivalry--Jim discovered the bears downstairs on Sunday--which leads us to yet another layer of Nature vs. Nurture: was Jim attracted to the bear that belonged to his father as a child or does he just like bears?
Regardless, the interaction at breakfast yesterday reminded me of littlemommy, what Adella calls the young Chrissy. (A term, I suppose, Adella has invented in order to wrap her head around the fact that her mother was once a child--a fact she is often reminded of because Granma keeps finding Chrissy's childhood toys as she rummages through her basement and announcing to Adella these treasures were once her mother's toys.)
"It's time for breakfast," she announced and put each bear in his (or her? or its?--I am not sure of their respective genders) seat at the kitchen table.
"I want the purple cereal." Raisin Bran--a cereal Chrissy liked at age 3. I poured Adella a bowl, knowing enough not to top the cereal with milk. Adella likes it dry, unlike her mother.
"Granma," she said with a distinctive didn't-you-forget-something tone.
"The bears need bowls."
"Oh, of course," I reply, finding the two smallest bowls and pour the smallest possible amount of Raisin Bran in that I estimate will satisfy her demands.
"And spoons." She fished around the silverware drawer until she found two spoons that satisfied her.
"Of course," I replied in a what-was-I-thinking voice.
She sat down, satisfied. I became absorbed with feeding Marshall who was happily smashing banana pieces between his fingers in the high chair. And life went on.
Later as I cleaned up the bear's cereal, I noted they had hardly touched their breakfasts. All the bran flakes were still there, but the raisins were conspicuously absent.
"Hmm," I thought, "just like Chrissy." And I fondly remember the days when she used to pick out the raisins from Raisin Bran. The days when she still ate raisins.
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