Sticks And Stones

It is not nice to call people names. While I know this is true, I still occasionally find myself calling Lily things like "Captain Obvious" and "heathen". If the shoe fits . .

Lily, on the other hand, does not make a habit of calling people names. She does a good job for her age of addressing people by their names, some even with appropriate salutations. Miss Lisa, King Daddy, etc. Yesterday, however, she slipped and called someone she doesn't even know a really funny name without realizing she was doing it.

Avery has a cousin named Abigail, and there's a picture of her on our refrigerator. Lily asked who it was yesterday and I told her. She responded, "Who's Abigail?" "Avery's cousin," I replied. Avery then chimed in with "I don't think you've ever met her Lily." "Actually," I said, "I think we met them at Cracker Barrel once when Lily was very young."

As Avery struggled to remember the details of the encounter, the wheels were turning feverishly in Lily's mind. She went potty, and as she was getting herself put back together she cocked her head to the side, put her hands on her hips and said "Daddy, who's Crappagail?"

You should have seen the look on my face. "What did you say?" I replied. "Who's Crappagail?" My mind raced through the last few minutes' conversations and I eventually figured out what she was doing. Somehow she'd amalgamated 'Abagail' and 'Cracker Barrel' into an entirely new, all encompassing nickname for the girl she'd seen on the fridge so many times. When I caught my breath from the hysterical laughter she'd elicited I enunciated the two names for her again, and explained again what they both were. Avery and I must have laughed for the next five minutes or so as we drove to the park.


In a related story, as we were driving to said park Avery complained about her body, specifically her arms, cramping. She had put in some extra time on the monkey bars earlier that afternoon and apparently she was sore. I'm quite sure what she had was not cramps, but rather just some localized soreness due to overuse of her skinny little arms. Later, as we were playing and laughing I was helping Lily across the monkey bars. About the third bar in, she looked down at me with an exasperated expression on her face and said "Daddy, my arms are crappy."

"They're what???"

"Crappy!"

"You mean they're cramping Lily?"

"Yeah Daddy, they're crappy!"

I didn't have the heart to correct her again, I just helped her make it all the way across and let her go on about her playing. Have a crappy . . I mean happy Memorial Day!