Monday, September 1, 2008

Grace Hannah And Her Excellent Entourage

When you're 4, and the third girl in a four-daughter household, you might be tempted to retire into shy introspection.

Or you might be a complete drama queen in a bid to capture some territory, noisewise.



But what to do when all the friends belong to your older and infinitely cooler sisters and all the oohs and aahs for the moment are received by your chubby-adorable baby sister?

What to do?

In the case of Grace Hannah, you go big or go home. She has recently introduced us to her friends, all ten of them. They are represented, interestingly enough, by her fingers. All of the boys' names end in "o" and all the girls' names end in "a." This is very Romance Language of her, I think.

The boys all live on her left and the girls all live on her right. They have individual personalities and attributes. She can tell you about them in detail (and trust me, your head would spin). My favorite is her left index finger. His name is Chacho, and he is "very, very naughty." How naughty, you ask, because you can't wait to hear? "He picks noses."

I had brief brushes with imaginary friendship as a child. I remember conjuring a girl named Annie when my stubborn parents wouldn't take me to town to see real children and my brother (I first typed "bother," but there's nothing to that Freud stuff, I'm certain) was too busy selling tickets to "see the biggest bird turd in the world" (aka a spilled can of white paint in the woods) to play with me. Ten cents. That's how much he earned per visitor. Why wouldn't he rather play with me? Why?

Anyway Annie would play with me all day long. But I didn't have a tenth of Gracie's imagination (One-tenth. Hah hah.); my Annie was notably similar to, you know, Broadway's Annie. Red curly hair, orphaned, a great singer. She liked to read with me under the big maple trees. But a lot of time I'd forget her out there.

Not Grace. She takes her friends with her everywhere we go. She whispers her observations to them when Maddy and Sarah won't listen. It's a very attentive crowd.

9 comments:

Toni said...

How darling! Chacho? Really? Chacho? Where did she get that name?

With ten adoring friends, you can't help but be special.

Alexis said...

"He picks noses" hahahahahahahehehehehee
That was TOO much.
What a PRECIOUS girl!!

Miri said...

Where did she get the name? I have been searching my brain for the answer to that. Most of the other names are pretty fanciful too. None are in use among our friends or family, and she doesn't watch television.

The EGE had recently explained the feminine and masculine endings of Spanish words to her, but that's about as close to an explanation as we can get.

Parenthood is hilarious.

Misty said...

how interesting...
When Gen was 4 she developed an imaginary friend. I speculated that it was because the poor girl developed culture shock going into our "only child" situation...
her imaginary friend's name was: Sarah Magunzie Effort.
We still don't get it...

Miri said...

I love Sarah Magunzie Effort. What a great name!

Barb Matijevich said...

Oh my gosh, that's the cutest thing ever. I had an imaginary friend (youngest of four, two bothers), though. the Frito Bandito. Because even then I was big into brand names...

Hey my word verification could be a girl's name! yeyaxuza

HonuGirl said...

Cool... I wish I had that kind of imagination. Kids are INCREDIBLE!!

My guys say their stuffed animals move & talk at night while we are asleep aka "toy story"! They are serious too -- quite entertaining!

Katie said...

Tell Chacho to watch out for El Stapho, he is one bad dude! LOL!

Do you think this could be a result of the lack of time spent with Head-Long boy lately?

Hilarious non-the-less!

Anonymous said...

I clicked! And I'm so glad I did. A great story and a money making opportunity. Awesome.