Yes Sir, that's my baby...

Rissa is at the piano.  Surreptitiously, I watch from the kitchen.  She sings as she plays Adele's Someone Like You  - she's been working out the chords with David.  How she can sing and play at the same time mystifies me.  Her lovely soprano drifts across the room, she has perfect piano posture - she is stunningly beautiful.  I find myself in awe of this person whom David and I created.  Then she notices me watching her... and she turns into a velociraptor and starts growling the song and banging on the keys with her little raptor arms and her head.

Sometimes in a lull in the conversation at the dinner table, Rissa will play a trumpet voluntary with her navel.

Or this...

Rissa, nearly choking on laughter in bed.  "You know sometimes when you're talking, and spit from the back of your throat squirts out?  That just happened to me!"

"So Mummy, you know how I'm playing this Sims game with cats and dogs?"

"There are cats and dogs who play Sims games?  Those are some smart mammals..."

"NO!  The characters are cats and dogs.  I am on the cats' side."

"Right.  Okay.  I'm with you now."

"Well in the game, you can do tasks to build up points and stuff.  So I just spent the last 1/2 hour... (she's so excited she can barely speak) ...WEEDING!!"


We're saying goodnight - it gets a little sloppy somewhere between the regular kiss and the butterfly kisses...  Rissa nearly ends up in hysterics.

"Why are you laughing so much?"  I ask.

"I remember when I was little and I tried to kiss you in the front hall - a big wet sloppy kiss with my tongue.  You asked me what I was doing and I said, 'I'm kissing you like Daddy does.' "


"Mummy, you know who would be a FANTASTIC superhero?

"No, who?"

"A NUN Superhero.  'Cause you know that crucifix belt thingie that nuns have with all the beads and stuff?"

"Uh-huh...?"

"She could totally whip that around and leave the sign of the cross on the criminals' faces!"


And tonight, just before dinner...
"Wait!  Wait!  I need to put on my bag!"  Then she arrives, clad in her ballet leotard, tights and a blue recycling bag which she has turned into a ginormous bib, by cutting holes for her head and arms.  "What?  I don't want to get stew on my tights!"

David looks at her, obviously impressed "That's quite ingenious."

Rissa shakes her head dismissively. "This one isn't as fancy as the one I took to school last year.  That one was a clear bag and I wrote "Rissa's Pomegranate Bag" on it... in red Sharpie - you know... (she is obviously excited at this part)...  to coordinate with the pomegranate JUICE when I was eating pomegranates..."

This is my daughter.  There is no one else on the planet like her, no one even comes close.  The joy of being her mother is something for which I am thankful EVERY SINGLE DAY.